


Sang d'Encre

by minorthirds



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Adult Themes, F/F, Gen, M/M, Magic AU, Mythical Menagerie, Not What You Expected™, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-21 08:45:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 100,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minorthirds/pseuds/minorthirds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Far away, out where they call it the end of the world,</i><br/><i>Birds fly, and screech a symphony of life."</i><br/>- Valravn, <i>"Fuglar"</i></p><p>The world crunches on his broken-glass desire.<br/>The raven doesn't know what he seeks.<br/>An end with a beginning.<br/>A symphony in <i>pianissimo.</i></p><p>(Or: Eren thinks he knows all there is to know about monsters and "inkbloods", but when he is forced into the care of the Scouting Legion by the King's order, his entire worldview is shattered - and the life he thought he'd led with it. Commander Erwin wants something from him and his friends, but to what end? For what reason?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Stolen

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting this quickly before work, so I might miss a note or two.  
> This is my first SNK fic, so critique is welcome! It's worth noting that the backstories of Eren and company are altered from what they are in canon, which leads to some very minor character changes - said backstories will be revealed later, don't worry.  
> However, just as in canon, there will be a timeskip after this chapter; the first is mostly setting the stage, so to speak.
> 
> Enjoy!

Small feet wrapped in old scraps of leather tap-tap against the dusty ground, kicking clouds of dirt up in their wake. Untidy, loose pebbles sink into the tough padding; someone bites out a groan of pain, the steady rhythm faltering for a fraction of a second.

The clouds rise and drift, tossed about by eddies of the summer breeze. Drift together, smelling heavily of horse and smoke; the sound of pounding grows louder, as if thunder rolling closer, crescendoes into a roar as a large, dark shape bursts through the haze.

The horse whinnies as the man yanks back hard on his mount’s reins. Gravel sprays as its back hooves dig, dig deep into the road, the beast rising, rearing suddenly, kicking with its forehooves as it struggles to come to a stop. Its rider holds on deftly, raising himself up in the saddle and moving with the animal, fluidly, almost an extension of the horse’s body.

There are no onlookers to appreciate the display of experience. As the horseman comes to a halt, among the clamor of the beast’s tread, two hands close around the collars of shirts, one for each. “This way,” Mikasa hisses under her breath, hauling Eren and Armin around the corner with her with every single muscle in her body.

The blond stumbles with her, panting heavily, clutching a few loaves of bread to his grimy shirt with dirt-smeared hands. Favors his right foot with every step, his gait uneven – the brunette sees this, winces, knows from the tautness of Armin’s neck that the boy is in pain. Eren is the first to urge them on, wrapping his hand around Mikasa’s and tugging her forward.

“Fucking kids,” the man grinds out through grit teeth, hefting himself out of the saddle of his horse. A bunch of street urchins shouldn’t be his problem, but he’d caught the skinniest, scrawniest one pilfering a loaf with the most irritatingly confident look he’d ever seen on a kid’s face – right under his fucking nose, too. What a little snot.

“Shinganshina’s already gone to hell,” he mutters under his breath, the dry-packed dirt making a _crunch, crunch_ noise under his boots. “If they send the rest of the Royal Guard out to clean up after the fuckers keeping peace here, I’m gonna have some words.”

His boot taps something soft. It skitters a few feet. He looks down.

A dirty loaf of bread lays bottom-up on the ground, pointing down the small alleyway carving a space between two abandoned homes.

“E-Eren, I –“ Armin tries to say, falling behind as the three of them round another corner.

“ _What_ , Armin,” Eren pants in response, green eyes fierce as he turns to face his friend. He’s running without looking ahead. Juvenile.

“I dropped – a loaf –“

It’s easy to figure out what Armin is trying to say, his face frightened and stained with rose flush, like a poorly-painted woman on a dark corner; only two ends of bread poke out from above his crossed arms, now, a pair of ears. There are three of them. There had been three loaves.

Eren thinks to swear, still not looking ahead – a sudden yank tears the breath out of him, Mikasa pulling him back by the arm from smashing into the wall before them.

“Dead end,” she says, blandly, but doesn’t hesitate. She throws Eren’s hand down, while the two boys are still staring in blank horror at the white stone that blocks their escape, points suddenly at a stack of overturned boxes beside a boarded-up door. “Eren, hide under those,” she orders, and his face snaps to hers, bright green eyes on tranquil black.

“But –“ and he looks back at Armin, who has not budged, as if to say _he should, he should be the one, save Armin_ , but Mikasa has no time for this –

“Don’t argue,” she snaps, but her eyes are soft. She grabs Eren’s arm again. Pulls on it to force him to look at her.

He does.

“You’ll rescue us. I believe in you.”

The brunette gapes. But whatever doubt flashes across his expression is gone, suddenly, and _he_ is gone, burrowing under the boxes and trying his best to still his breathing, inhaling through his nose and forcing down a sneeze at all the dust that threatens to clog his system.

He finds a small sliver to peer through, a missing slat of a carton. Watches as Mikasa gently takes one of Armin’s hands, holds it in her own, whispers something in his ear – he looks less like shock and despair and more like resignation, but the set of his shoulders is defiant, and seeing that gives Eren a twinge of pride.

“Hey. Kids.”

He steels himself, fighting the urge to move. He can only see calves from this view, encased in dark boots with thick heels. They pad forward confidently – stop before Mikasa’s small feet, the same color as the ground, the bits of leather in which they are wrapped losing the last bit of dye.

“Where’s your brat friend,” the man growls tonelessly.

Mikasa stiffens. Eren imagines Armin does too, but the form of the girl obscures his view. For a long moment, nothing stirs. Even the breath in his chest slows, stops, the air in his lungs stagnating. Tastes dull like the lifeless, dusty dirt.

 _Crunch._ The man takes another step. “I _said_ ,” he rasps, grasping Mikasa by what Eren realizes is the scarf, the one she always wears twined around her pale neck, the end having come untucked and hanging down her front like a river of spilled blood, “where is he?”

Another beat of strained silence oozes past, thick and viscous with tension.

“H-he,” Armin suddenly stutters, begins, a shudder in the timbre of his voice, and Mikasa’s fist tightens, her knuckles go as white as the winter sun as if she is tensed to hook him right in the nose, “- he ran off towards the outskirts,” he finishes lamely.

Mikasa stays tense. Eren doesn’t breathe. (They both know how terrible of a liar Armin happens to be.)

There’s time enough for a nameless prayer, the silence stretching tight, but Eren doesn’t know what to plead and doesn’t figure out what to pray for before the soldier scoffs. “Smart kid.”

But there is no time to be relaxed. Mikasa’s fingers only barely loosen before the guy utters a derisive snort. “Orphans, I’d wager,” he guesses, and Eren thinks he looks over Armin and Mikasa disdainfully. The tone of his voice leaves a disgusting taste in the boy’s mouth, and he almost rises, intent on beating the shit out of the man for looking down on the closest thing to what he’s got for a family, thinking he’s so much _better_ for the emerald cloak slung ‘round his shoulders – but he remembers Mikasa’s words, remembers it’s them he wants to protect, and the best thing he can do right now is keep his mouth shut.

The words taste like acid going back down his throat. He gags on them; resolves not to let them fester and stew if he can help it, from now on.

Armin's and Mikasa's continued silence is enough of an answer for the soldier. Eren can practically hear the grin plastered on his visage as he leans forward. "I can offer you something better than thievery, rats. The King is rather short on servants. and a pig wouldn't eat the shit that comes out of the kitchens. And _you..._ "

From the appraising tone, Eren can gather that the man's eyes are skating down Mikasa's frame - he can see her hands twitch, and he has to bite down hard on his lip to remind himself to stay put and shut up. The taste of coppery blood fills his mouth, welling up from the indents beneath his teeth.

"You're one of them doll girls," he croons. Eren imagines the bastard running a finger down Mikasa's cheek. "Not many of you left. I'll put you up as a maid and earn extra privileges for a few years."

There is no hesitation. Mikasa swings at the soldier; his left hand rises, brushes against the inside of her arm and casts her punch easily away. The shift leaves Armin visible - he tenses as if to run, but then thick sausage fingers curl around the collar of his blue shirt, the scarred fabric resisting as the man pulls, _pulls_ , choking the blond boy with his own clothing -

Eren bites down on the heel of his thumb, this time, relying on the flesh between his teeth to keep his mouth closed.

“Fard?” someone calls without warning, the name bouncing off the walls and corners of the winding alley. There is a scuffling noise as Armin’s feet touch back down on the ground, the man stiffening suddenly, heeling like a dog to its master at the new voice. Mikasa makes as if to edge closer to her companion, block him with the use of her own body. “Fard” ignores her, his feet remaining rooted to the ground. (The luster of the polished leather is diminished beneath the layer of dust, Eren realizes vindictively, as if the dirtying of the man’s clothes counts as revenge.)

“What are you doing back here?” the voice inquires, moving closer; the words are clearer, passing through empty air rather than from stone wall to stone wall. “Who are the kids?”

“Couple of thieves,” he responds, confidently. “Caught ‘em and their friend raiding the marketplace.” The loaves of bread are laying on the ground, before Armin’s feet, abandoned in the commotion.

“Well, what are you going to do? The bread’s hardly edible now, and you know what we’re here for –“ the voice, which Eren thinks might be female, trails off suddenly, and boots scuffle over to Mikasa, pause before her suddenly. Fard stands behind the girl, moves back as his companion approaches; neither of the children speak, but Mikasa’s fingers gather together into a loose fist, as if needing something to hold onto.

“Mikasa Ackerman?” the woman asks suddenly, and Mikasa flinches noticeably.

There is a flurry of movement as several things happen at once. Armin shifts to the side, as if to present a feeble barrier between the woman and his friend; Fard swears; Mikasa steps back; his hands lock around her upper arms, holding her still. The woman’s voice is dry. “Looks like you did your job better than I thought,” she says to Fard, who is struggling to hold Mikasa. Armin has turned, watching the both of them in frozen uncertainty.

Eren tastes blood again.

“Take her and let’s go,” the woman orders, and a moment later Armin’s feet disappear too; he lets out a noise of surprise, but his struggling is feeble. “Might as well take both,” she revises, not so much as a hitch in her breath from the added weight.  
“What about the last kid?” Fard inquires, sounding as if he had just run a mile. For a moment, Eren is relieved that Mikasa doesn’t go without force – but then he remembers what she had said, and realizes she had known exactly what was going to happen.

 _Damn it_ , he thinks, angry tears welling in the corners of his eyes, another surge of pain as his teeth clamp harder. _Damn it!_

But he can’t move from the boxes, lest they notice his presence; they are discussing him, however vaguely, and the woman scoffs as a response to her underling. “Forget about him. She’s the one we need. And as for _this_ one,” as if referring to Armin, she says, “he’d be suited to an apron.”

“I thought the same thing,” Fard agrees, breathing somewhat labored.

Eren screws his eyes shut, some of the tears falling, cutting streaks through the dust on his skin. _Slaves in the Capital…_ Soldiers abduct orphans fairly commonly as a means to acquire servants for nobles, as it is said no one will miss them. Any street child knows this – some would prefer such a life, but Eren –

He would rather die than live like that, attending to someone’s hand and foot like some kind of caged animal. And Mikasa and Armin had agreed, and now –

The soldiers have gone, left the small area with their cargo in tow, and he knows their encampment isn’t far, just outside the south edge of town. He’ll go rescue them. Mikasa had faith in him.

The boxes crunch as he pushes them off, crack against the ground, decayed slats snapping in two. He stands, rolling his shoulders, as if rising out of a carcass; he would look a sight if anyone were around, covered in dirt and sweat, an angry blaze kindling in his green eyes.

_Tonight._

They won’t be in there long.

 

The soldiers have become complacent, confident in the two sentries they have posted, one at each entrance to the camp, denoted by pools of orange torchlight. Eren catches sight of the one he edges around, skirting the circle of light – he leans against a wooden post, examining his nails, picking at a cuticle with the tip of his finger.

He feels like spitting at the soldier’s foot, right on his stupid boot, but he clenches his hands into fists and focuses, ducking low as he darts from the cover of one gnarly bush to another; the branches scratch and the air reeks of horses, but the discomfort hardly fazes him. In fact, the reek means he’s getting closer.

There’s no one guarding the other side of the stable, for some reason. A small gap separates the wall of the enclosure from the disheveled old fort’s fence of close-gathered, upraised poles; it’s easy enough to grab a hold, wiggling his eleven-year-old fingers and toes between the two and scrabbling his way up over the top of the boundary. His feet thump down like loaves of bread with an extra forty pounds – more like a sack of potatoes and nearly as full of grace as one, as he stumbles forward and feels his ankle twist under him. He catches the curse and bites it down between his lips, but the quick hiss escapes his teeth, a captive snake –

No lights are on in any nearby tents, but he can hear the thrum of a crowd about two hundred feet to his right. Some of the tension leaves his shoulders at the realization, but he frowns and his stomach clenches as the scent of cooking meat reaches his nose; it gurgles but not loudly, a break of luck for which he is thankful, amid the throbs of pain from his bad ankle. If it comes down to it, he might not be able to run that fast – but he doesn’t intend to let that situation come about.

 _What would Armin do?_ he thinks, knowing his more cautious, analytic, intelligent friend would be able to figure this out easily. Where would the army keep two kid prisoners? Away from the stables is all he can think... away from the commotion of the mess hall... probably with a guard, right?

 _That’s it._ If he moves away from the sound of drunken soldiers, look for a guard in front of a tent, he should be on the right track... right?

It’s some way to move forward, and he grabs onto it without thinking too hard, making his way to the left by stepping around the backs of tents, gently, _gently,_ remembering for some reason the cat that always followed – _follows_ – Armin around, twining between his legs and nosing up against his hand, silent as a ghost; remembers to step toe-first, holds his hands out far to balance, like a bird about to take flight, frozen in the instant before its feet leave the ground.

Makes his way past five or six tents in this fashion; watches unconsciously for the faded edges of a circle of torchlight (draws the conclusion that light means guards without realizing it), but is not rewarded for his efforts until he nearly reaches the end of the column of tents, almost crosses the hard-beaten packed pockmarked dirt road before he realizes and stumbles back, leaning his weight on his injured ankle and hissing lightly.

The sentry mere feet away on the other side of the wall shifts, boots scuffling.

Eren holds his breath tight in his throat, a lump forming that would be hard to swallow past had he any spit to swallow; he licks his dry lips and retreats slowly, carefully, sparse dry grass threatening to worm in between the hem of his trousers and his shoes. Lucks out when he realizes the last tent has someone standing outside, as his arm comes into view when he passes for the second time; his tentative foot stills, stops, and he is standing, breathing almost into the seamless back flap of the enclosure. It flutters as he releases a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding still – the fabric warms as he whispers into it.

“Armin,” he says lowly. “Mikasa. Are you in there?”

Something scrapes and slides, he hears, tenses to run –

“Eren?” he hears a whispered response. “Is that you?”

“ _Armin,_ ” he responds instinctively, leaning close, pressing his hand up against the rough fabric. Something presses against it on the other side; a palm and fingers, Armin’s hand, fingers slightly shorter than his, but he can feel the heat soaking through the burlap. “Are you okay? Is Mikasa with you?”

“She’s right here,” he whispers back. “We’re okay – at least, right now.” But he’s not saying something; a silence falls after he speaks, too quickly, but Eren knows him, knows that if he waits for a few beats of his hammering heart, Armin will find his words.

“But I overheard some of the soldiers,” he says, quieter now, so quietly that Eren has to strain to hear even though his mouth is inches away, separated only by cloth that smells of dampness to his nose, buried in the coarse panel. “They’re taking Mikasa to the king.”

“What?” Eren bites out, a little louder than he had planned; the exclamation slips past his teeth and tongue before he can still it. “Why?”

“Because of her parents,” the younger of the two says grimly. He can hear the frown, the way his teeth worry his bottom lip. “They think that she might be one too –“

“But she isn’t!” Eren argues. “She’s not like them, she isn’t _scum_ like that –“

“ _Eren,_ ” Armin stresses, and the brunette obediently bites his tongue, a twinge of guilt flashing through his chest and stomach. He knows that tone, but remembers it differently; remembers it choked with emotion, remembers staring up at a fiery sky with his cheek stinging and letting out an _oomph_ as the other boy drops down on his chest, tears streaming down his face, remembers Mikasa crouching over them both, but staring over them, looking blankly at nothing as she has so often done _after_ –

“They’ll execute her,” he whispers, trying vainly to close his fingers around Armin’s, unsure if she can hear their conversation. “Even though...”

“I know.”

The moment of silence draws out past their shared breaths, beyond into the minute that follows. There is a sudden sound, another scrape and shuffle, and then Armin’s hand slides over a bit, and he hears a whispered “here” and then there is a thumb and the side of a palm pressed against his, lined up imperfectly but his heart still gives a twinge because it’s all three of them, like it’s always been, and he will _get them out_ , because he is _not_ losing Mikasa and Armin to a bunch of goddamned soldiers and a king that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about them unless ink runs through their veins (and he _knows_ Mikasa isn’t one of those, has seen crimson well up from scrapes on her knuckles, she isn’t a damn blackblood but his word means less than silt at the bottom of a river) and if he _does_ it’s to laugh gleefully over a goblet of wine as he sees the light leave their eyes.

Doesn’t matter how much he agrees with him, he sure as hell doesn’t agree with _that_.

“Can you cut this open?” Mikasa whispers, and it takes him a moment to regain the thread of conversation.  
Eren’s voice sticks in his throat; her fingers rise away, slightly, her nails pressing lightly into burlap into the pads of his own, not enough to even indent. “I don’t have a knife,” he says back, looks around on the ground for something sharp. “Let me just...”

“What are the two of you up to?” someone says, suddenly, from inside the tent. Both hands pull away instantly, as if burned, and Eren thinks he catches one of them whisper “ _go,_ ” but he can’t be sure, and he’ll be damned if he leaves them behind –

He hesitates a beat too long, and the soldier lets out a loud curse, brushes out of the tent and around the left corner, the side of the road, to cut off his escape; Eren is already stumbling back toward the stable, hopping deftly over the support cords of the tents he passes.

He lands wrong after a leap, his bad ankle pulsing, but the soldier is just behind him, not twenty feet back. Eren ducks around one corner, and then another, slipping inside the flap of a tent and pressing himself up hard against one of the posts holding up the roof. The guard is still swearing as he rampages back, doesn’t even pause to look inside the tents he passes, but the boy presses the heel of his palm against his mouth, breathing intensely in and out of his nose, forcing air into his lungs.

Another soldier runs past, headed the opposite direction; another recruit to the search, and he knows his chances of survival are dwindling rapidly, but the ache in his ankle still has not subsided, and he might tip over were he to rest any weight on it right now.

The second he drops his hand from his mouth, peering intently out the gap between the flaps of the tent, there’s another hand to replace it, deftly covering his lips and forcing the shout back down his throat. His arms are locked to his sides by a tight, confining grip – Eren makes as if to bite down, but a hurried whisper in his ear stirs the reflex.

“Keep your damned mouth shut and listen to me, _brat,_ ” the man utters, mouth pressed close to his ear. “I’ll let you loose if you promise not to make a sound. Can you do that?”

There’s a moment of hesitation – Eren hates to trust him, but what choice does he have? He has to get free. So he nods, sharply, as much as the grip will allow; thinks he might have spit a bit in the earlier struggle. Brown locks ruffle, are trapped in the folds of the man’s clothes.

But he takes him at his word and pulls his hands away; the boy whips around fast enough to see the way the man frowns at the hand that had been covering his mouth, as if it didn’t belong to him any longer. He wipes it on his trousers in an irritable motion, ignoring his gaze. “Fucking gross,” he says.

Eren’s heart hammers away, and he is still staring, only belatedly noticing the _size_ of the man whose tent he’d stumbled in on; he’s almost on eye level with the adult soldier, a fact that catches him by superficial surprise, except then _Armin and Mikasa_ –

He almost moves as if to leave, but the man growls. “Where do you think you’re going?”

The boy is smart enough not to respond, but his fingers clench. He’s not going to be caught _here_ , not _now_ , not at the hands of this man. Not when his two best friends are seven tents away, and he’s still – _he can still_ –

“I’d bet you’re here for the two shrimps they grabbed from town today,” the soldier says, sharply, and the words are accurate, so accurate that Eren falters.

The flinch is answer enough.

“Fucking typical,” he grouses, folding his arms with a piercing stare. “Think you can play the hero? It’d be cute if it didn’t make me want to puke. Look at yourself.” He pays no heed to the way green eyes blaze up at him, filled with anger. “It’s a suicide mission for some brat like you.”

Eren opens his mouth to respond, but the words die on his lips as the soldier speaks again. “What, do you have some kind of death wish? That eager for your life not to have any meaning at all?” He steps closer, his aura, his force of presence causing him to seem to tower over the boy though hardly three inches separates them. Then he’s right before Eren, looking down his nose at him.

He realizes his eyes are grey, grey as a sky brewing a storm, a drowning deluge. Grey as cold wind.

“If you’re willing to throw your life away for something as stupid as that, I’m not gonna stop you,” he drones. He seems disinterested, the words themselves containing force but the tone unfazed. But the fact that the man is even saying them at all, Eren thinks, is testament to whatever it is he’s feeling.

For a long moment, he is humbled by the entire exchange. Why does this soldier care about a bunch of poor orphans?

Seeing the contrary flare in the boy's eyes dim like a dying candle draws a long sigh from the soldier's lips. "You're too young to be caught up in this shit," he says, shaking his head. "Leave it to the ones that know what they're doing. Better than making a fucking nuisance of yourself. Who knows - you may even learn something. Like some damn survival instincts," he reaches into his pocket, thumbs out what appears to be a roll of tobacco, "but that's probably too much to hope for, for a fucking brat like you."

His eyes remind Eren of Mikasa, and he has the strange urge to brush the man's dark bangs from his face; they are ridiculously well-kept, but far from lustrous even at their cleanest.

"Cat got your piece of shit tongue, or did it shrivel up and die?" he inquires blandly, as if he asks only on principle and not out of any interest.

Eren blinks. He's been trying to follow, but he keeps hearing soldiers calling back and forth outside, and thinking of Mikasa and Armin, and his heart roars in his ears and drowns out the man's already convoluted words. "Are... are you going to arrest me?" he can only think to ask. He can only process so much, and the light trousers and shirt paired with the signature boots keep reminding him of who he is speaking to.

The unlit roll nearly falls out of his teeth. "Were you even fucking listening?" he fairly states, in disbelief, though he shakes his head after a moment.

"Show me how well you can play dog," he says, walking past Eren and towards the entrance flap of the tent. "Follow me, play nice like a good boy, and keep your _fucking mouth shut._ "

He doesn't understand, but Eren does not need to be told twice. He hurries after the man with his teeth clamped tight, unsure as to how he commands so much respect, or why he happens to trust him - but he does. Something about him, his unfaltering honesty, is almost - comforting? The thought is strange, and he isn't sure why he has it. But his confusion over the sudden conclusion is mixed into the sheer fear that leaps into his throat the second he steps out of the flap, sets foot on the beaten path, in the open amidst the entirety of the unit of soldiers.

He stumbles along after the man, eyes darting to and fro, waiting for shapes to form and coalesce out of the flickering, jagged torchlight shadows; nearly trips over scuffs and pockmarks in the path left by horse hooves and the wheels of carts. His guide does not look back, all but ignoring his presence – his fingers, thin digits, still twine around the roll of unlit tobacco, which he dips into a torch posted outside a tent to light, takes a draw on it and releases the smoke through pursed pale lips, an irritable dragon.

Eren catches a whiff and coughs. He does not have a high tolerance for smoke, so he presses the sleeve of his plain shirt to his mouth and nose.

As he does so, he hears a shout, and the sound of something thumping to the ground. “There he is!”

Sudden fear surges through the boy’s system, coupled with gross anger – _they’ll hurt Mikasa and Armin_ – and he tenses as if to bolt, or hit and kick and bite to hurt as many as he can before they take him too – he isn’t very strong compared to them, but he’s small, and he’s fast –

but the sound of a boot scraping as his soldier turns around freezes him in place. He’d said to keep his mouth shut, hadn’t he?

_Why am I trusting him?_

The small group of soldiers halts just inside the pool of light Eren and the smoking soldier stand in; a matching look of confusion passes over all of their faces. The silence strains for a few moments.

“C-Corporal, sir,” one of them starts feebly, “th-that boy – he’s a trespasser –“

“Is he now?” the soldier behind Eren says flatly, and he thinks to turn to see his face, but he is rooted to the ground.

“Yes, sir,” the “leader” of the group reaffirms, nodding, as if more confident. “Glen spotted him sneaking around behind the witch girl’s tent.”

 _She isn’t one of them!_ Eren wants to shout automatically; he hardens his jaw and clamps his teeth shut, holding the angry words under his tongue.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” his soldier says finally, and Eren smells another cloud of smoke, as if he had taken a drag in the ensuing pause, “but you just said you found this little shitstain _inside_ the encampment?”

“Y-yes, sir.” The other soldier shifts uncomfortably; the others, behind him, look at each other, quick glances, as if wondering if they should slip into the shadows. He can practically hear their thoughts: _This isn’t turning out well…_

“Which one of you fuckers had his head shoved so far up his ass tonight on watch that a little shit like this got inside without so much as a scrape?”

The silence that falls after his words is the most prolific yet, as every single one of the soldiers freezes in place. Eren counts eight beats of his hammering heart before someone in the far back raises his hand, slow, tentative, the pale spot almost lost in the depths of the shadows.

Another puff of smoke drifts past his nose.

“Care to tell me why you left your post, shit-for-brains?” his soldier inquires viciously, and the hand visibly jolts; Eren thinks he might have heard a soft curse.

“The… the search wasn’t going well,” he says, veritably shouts over the collected crowd, “sir.”

The soldier behind Eren doesn’t respond at first, as if to digest the statement. Then he clears his throat. “Any one of you bastards, remind me why we’re here.”

“To keep the peace, sir!”

“And what do we do to keep the peace?”

“Exterminate the monsters that those fucking inkbloods summon, sir!”

Eren’s breath catches at the force of the slur, but he finds himself nodding along. This is what he agrees with – the only thing is, they think Mikasa –

The corporal makes a noise in his throat. “Better,” he says. “But are your monster girlfriends gonna wait for you to catch a piece of shit little kid like good little mutts until you’re ready to fight them off?”

“Er –“ The soldier aims to respond, stumbles over his words and swallows them back. “N-no, sir.”

He scoffs, and Eren thinks he shakes his head. “You’re all done for,” he says, very quietly, low enough that the boy can only barely hear him – he wonders if that was on purpose or on accident. A thump, a scrape; must be scrubbing the remnants of his tobacco roll into the dirt. “To your tents. All of you. I’m taking the rest of the fucking watch tonight, because none of you know what the fuck you’re doing. I’ll deal with you tomorrow.”

The soldiers hesitate, glancing at each other.

“ _Dismissed,_ ” he growls. The gathering of soldiers dissipates quickly, quicker than Eren thought could have been possible. But he has experienced the terror secondhand, and he thinks he might understand what it must be like being under this man’s command. Strict; efficient.

A surge of respect fuels him, and the feeling is alien. He wonders about it as he stumbles after the man, who has sprung into motion as if he had never really stopped, long thin legs and a slight body commanding absolute obedience.

They pass through the entrance to the encampment without incident, but he keeps walking, past the circle of light and further, far enough that he almost reaches a bush that Eren recognizes before he turns around.

“They’re in my hands now,” the soldier says suddenly, and Eren pauses mid-step, looks (up) at him in surprise. “Do us both a favor and stay the fuck out of it for a while.”

“But,” Eren can’t stop himself from saying (knows it’s a bad idea to cross the man in any manner, any at all, glances back toward the grouping of tents to avoid the piercing stare that he feels tingling on the back of his neck), “Mikasa… she _isn’t…_ ”

“Hey,” the corporal bites out, startles the boy and draws his glance, bright green eyes luminous in the darkness. The soldier looks conflicted for the shadow of an instant, something that surprises Eren – immensely – but he thinks it might have been a trick of the light as he blinks and he is firm, stonefaced, once again. “I won’t let them die. Either of them. I promise – and I keep my fucking promises.”

“Swear it,” he whispers. “Swear it on something that matters.”

Against the boy’s expectation, the soldier actually hesitates for a moment, as if considering the request. Eren can’t place the look in the man’s stormcloud eyes.

“I swear it on the wind,” he says, at long last. Then he straightens, rolling his shoulders back, a familiar glare coming back to his face in the tilt of his mouth and his eyebrows.

“Now get lost, you pygmy brat.”

As he makes his way through the darkness, Eren thinks that maybe the corporal’s eyes had stayed soft.


	2. Bloodmouth, Part the First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven years later, Eren's idealistic, hotheaded belief in happy endings lands him in hot water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! A second chapter!  
> I apologize profusely for being a slow writer; this fic probably isn't going to have much of a regular update schedule, I'm sorry to say.  
> I'll point out that I aged everyone up an extra two years. It's really for my own personal preference than for any regard to the plot.  
> There are more characters and more plot points introduced in this chapter; I'll be updating the tags as needed, but it seems to be a common theme that I'm stuck updating this fic right before work, hahah.  
> I intend to draw a lot of parallels between this fic and events in the actual anime/manga, so I'll post warnings later as to when the fic starts to edge into vaguely manga-spoiling territory. For now, though, it's pretty secure. (And rest assured, everything will be explained in time. I PROMISE.)
> 
> Enjoy!

“Eren!”

The pack slung over his shoulder thumps comfortably against his back as he turns in the saddle, feet planted firmly in the stirrups (his toes make as if to curl over the leather thongs, but then he remembers he is wearing sturdy travel boots, thick on his feet like chunks of lead), one hand thoughtlessly twined into the horse’s mane and scratching soothingly at the back of its neck.

The man is running up to him yet again, though it is less of a run and more of an uncontrolled jog – it is downhill, he is hurrying, and the bundle in his arms weighs him forward, edges him closer to rolling down the path rather than staying on his feet. But somehow he does, sweating to the tips of his close-cropped blond hair (it is hot, unbelievably hot, which is why Eren’s traveling cloak is draped across the mare’s rear and his sleeves are bunched up to his elbows) when he presents the last item to the young man on the horse.

“Two spare tanks,” he explains, propping his hands on his hips and leaning back to gasp his air back. He had been a soldier, once, and his body remembers tricks, remembers how being fit used to feel – but hunching over and breathing in the soot-air of a forge is not the same as defending cities from monsters, and his muscles wear away, atrophy, even as his mind stays sharp.

“Anything else, Hannes?” he asks, after having tucked the bundle into one of the bulging saddle bags, looks down at the man he had been apprenticed to for seven years with a confident grin.

“You’ve come a long way since the side of the road,” the smith says instead, watching as Eren’s face tightens, green eyes dim, the smile withers away into what might be a frown were he to be aware of the way his own face sets left to its own devices.

“Hey –“

“Ignore me, I’m getting sentimental,” the man overrides. “Now listen up. The Capital is only a few days away – it’s at the heart of Sina District. Once you cross into Sina, the patrols are more consistent, so you should be fine. But just  _play it safe –_ always ride within eyesight of a patrol, no  _galloping,_ the Capital’s not going anywhere but if you jostle the Maneuver Gear too much you’ll throw off the calibration and it’ll be a piece of junk anyway –“

Noticing Eren’s wandering eyes, Hannes grips his forearm, firm tight with the fingers of a man who works with metal, drawing his gaze, “- and for the love of all that’s holy, Eren,  _reach a city by dusk._ I don’t care if you have to double back, but you are not to set up camp beyond city walls, got it?”

The young man nods once, solemnly, and Hannes wonders how much instruction he’ll actually obey, before he reaches into a pocket and deposits a clinking bag into his lap. “Spend it however you want, just don’t go broke,” he instructs, ignores the look of surprise that spreads like jam across Eren’s face as he stows it.

He has little else to say, so he says only one thing. “Come back soon.”

Eren nods, presses the heel of his boot against Mina’s flank to push her into motion. Seeing the speck disappear into the distance, beyond the trees, beyond Trost’s gate, is underwhelming, but Hannes watches until he can’t watch anymore.

Then turns, nods to the guards manning the gate, and turns for home, muttering a tacked-on “come back  _safe_ ” under his breath. The meaning would have been lost on Eren, so the smith knows the words are only for himself.

He still thinks of Carla. Carla laying on the ground, hands splayed, hair sprawled, asleep in a pool of her own blood, bleeding fresh red.

 

 

Eren still thinks of Hannes. Hannes’ kind gestures, bright eyes and laughter, the way he had stared up at a man on a horse laying half-dead on a road halfway between Shinganshina and Trost, throat swallowing dust.

But then he thinks of Armin, Armin and his books and his curiosity, and Mikasa and her quiet smiles and her fierce protective streak, and he looks first at the saddle bag containing the 3D Maneuver Gear he is to deliver to the King – and then at the other bag, within which is tucked the other model, the prototype with all of its kinks and dings and shortcomings, the one he is as attuned to as he is his own hips and hands, and the wave of guilt he expects to feel is lessened, breaks against his determination.

He hasn’t forgotten them. He hopes they haven’t forgotten him.

 

 

There is a mass of people clamoring at the gate into the Capital, the group many times larger than the arch is wide. Few are on horseback; many are shabbily-dressed, feet bound in rags and fabric hanging from their arms, wicker baskets overflowing with apples and corn clasped tight in their arms. Sentries stand near the crowd, but distanced, watching over the peasants as if they are eyeing livestock.

Eren frowns as he reins his horse in, giving the villagers going to market a wide berth. It is midmorning, the earliest he could have arrived; he had managed to rise with the dawn, spent the first hour half-asleep on horseback with a stale loaf clasped between his teeth, but the realization that the effort and brisk chill of a Sina District morning had been for naught causes the young man to think longingly of his small bed in Trost, tucked in a corner, sleeping in late on a workless morning.

Immersed in such a fantasy, it takes Eren a moment to stir when one of the guards waves at him. “You, kid!” the man finally yells, irritated; he jolts in his saddle, taps Mina’s flank gently to guide her close.

“Are you here for the market?” the man asks gruffly, not looking at him, instead glancing over the packed saddlebags hanging against the mare’s sides. At Eren’s negative, the lines in his face relax somewhat. His next inquiry is mildly gentler, a minor improvement. “Papers?”

The scroll in question is tucked just inside of one of the bags. Eren fishes it out and presents it to the guard, whose eyes skim the paper. He’s sure that’ll be it,  _he probably can’t even read –_

“You’re Hannes, then?” he inquires, skeptically, glancing from the paper up to the young man and back down, reading further.

“No,” he says. “I’m his apprentice. Eren –“ he hesitates for a fraction of a moment, something telling him  _no don’t use that name_ , but he recovers quickly, just fast enough to tack on, “- Arlert.”

“Arlert,” the man says dubiously, giving the paper one last glance, though he doesn’t pursue the matter, the awkward pause having gone seemingly unnoticed: he is merely dubious by nature.

Eren’s heart still stutters over a beat as the man looks at him, stares at him hard with stiff brown eyes, gives him one judgmental sweep and hands the letter back to him; his hands are clammy, he notes absently, slipping it back into the bag. He is thinking too hard; takes a deep breath, holds it for a few moments as the soldier calls out at the crowd to separate to let him pass through and he nudges his horse forward, under an arch of dark stone and past the sharp biting tips of the thick stone gate suspended on wrought-iron chains above, and then he is through.

The first difference he notes is the sheer amount of people. Stalls and carts line both sides of the main avenue, the sharp line of the wall’s shadow cutting off in a jagged line over bustling marketgoers.

The city is large, circular, built on a rise so all streets lead uphill past terraced houses to the castle that sits at the apex, perched upon the city like a crown in its own right. Eren stares at it with a frown. Wonders suddenly,  _is this smart?_ But then again, of course it isn’t. He isn’t here to be smart.

He’s here to make good on a seven-year promise. Thinks of Armin and Mikasa, the way he remembers them, a little fuzzy at the edges but ten years old and smiling, and he thinks  _I want that back._

He’ll never get it back, but he knows the next best thing.

 

 

Then he’s in, and he doesn’t want to consider how easy it was, to strap his Maneuver Gear on, hide behind the chimney of an adjacent house until the sentries on the fourth floor of the castle had rotated to the other side of the building; it’s hardly whisper-silent, but the noise of the reel unwinding is a steady buzz-whine if he does it slow enough. The inner courtyard is not guarded and he counts his blessings, unstraps the motor and wire system from his harness and stows it with the other prototype in a bag slung over his shoulder, looking for all the world as if he’d gotten lost somewhere in the castle as he pushes open a small door set in the wall (small for servants, he remembers this from a conversation over one of Armin’s books century-years ago) and steps into the gloom of the royal building.

Eren notes immediately both the damp smell, the light filtering through the windows, and the rug on the stone floor leading off to his left. He picks the right and starts off, moves slow, plasters a look of curiosity and confusion to his face to aid with his story.

Around the third downward staircase he thinks he is heading in what might be the right direction. A dungeon would be down this way – he realizes he has no way to know for sure whether or not they’d been kept on as servants or left to wither away in a cell, but he shakes the thought away before an image can come to mind. He doesn’t want to imagine his friends emaciated and half-blind from darkness.

The scent of mildew is cloying, and it draws a sneeze.

“Who’s there?” comes an immediate question from close nearby; Eren freezes on the spot as a figure rounds the corner. Broad shoulders, dressed in simple clothes, a handkerchief tied around his mouth, and a feather duster in hand, which he points at the intruder, the two stare at each other for two moments, brown to green, the stranger speaks again. “Who the hell are you?”

Eren realizes that he is shorter than the man in exactly as much time as it takes for him to grit his teeth against a snappish response. Not three seconds and he is already rubbed the wrong way – not that he is a complacent person, but he thinks  _that has got to be a new record._ He stifles the automatic indignation. “Do you know Mikasa and Armin?”

“Who’s asking?” the servant responds, falling victim to the same tense vibe.

“A friend.”

“A friend,” he parrots, in the same dubious tone as the soldier from earlier. “Well –“

“Jean?” The voice precedes its owner, the sound of footsteps echoing down the dark, dank corridor. “Is everything okay? I heard yelling –“

Blond hair, intelligent blue eyes, still a bit shorter than average but nowhere near as small as he’d looked draped in three-sizes-too-big sweaters; his gaze sweeps over his face at the same time the new servant breathes out a name, a whispered plea. “Eren.”

“Armin,” he says back, and something clatters to the floor and suddenly he has both arms full of his best friend. Hugging has never really been his thing, but it’s been  _seven years_ and Armin’s weight and warmth is unexpectedly welcome.

“I thought you weren’t…” he starts to say, voice choked with emotion, but Eren cuts him off, shakes his head and puts a steadying hand on Armin’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry I took so long.”

Someone clears their throat, and Armin springs back faster than a cat underfoot, blushes, the blood rising to his upper cheeks and dusting across his cheekbones where they are visible above the cloth tied across his mouth. Eren is slower to react, against expectation, but he looks over, resting a hand on a strap of his pack to reassure himself that it is still there. He opens his mouth –

“So,” the taller servant says, glancing pointedly from Armin to Eren and back again with raised eyebrows, “you –“

“ _No,_ ” Armin interrupts, leaning all of his weight on the syllable, shakes his head so emphatically Eren wonders if he should be offended. “No. He’s just a friend.”

“Where’s Mikasa?” he asks before the guy can respond; this “Jean”, a visible tightening of his eyebrows, looks as if he might spit in his direction the second his lips shape the name.

Armin defuses the situation by grasping Eren’s wrist firmly and pulling him along, further down the dark hall, stopping only to grab the broom he had dropped before. He hears Jean mutter a soft “Asshole,” in his general direction, but then they are heading up the stairs, and there’s a sudden wash of light as they hit what must be ground level again, the rays of high noon pouring in through the windows of this portion of the castle.

There’re rugs and expensive pieces of furniture, a stiff-looking sofa next to a pedestal with a vase to his right, but he only barely notices these as his gaze travels instantly to two people standing further down the hall: one is a brunette girl, a bucket with a rag thrown over the side hanging from her left hand and a half-eaten loaf of bread from the right, and the other…

“Mikasa!” he can’t stop himself from exclaiming.

She jumps and stiffens, long dark hair sprawled over her tense shoulders, before she whirls in place, and then he finds his face and nose and mouth stuffed full of it as she twines her arms around him protectively. “Eren…” she breathes, as if she is about to cry.

“Yo, Armin, what did I miss?” he hears someone say beats later, pulls away from Mikasa at the same time she does him, stares at the new arrival; like Mikasa and the other girl, his face is bared, his hair close-cropped and his build small, smaller even than Armin.

“Connie!” the blond says brightly, realizes belatedly that he’s looking at Eren and Eren is looking back. “He’s –“ he starts, but abandons the thought. “Connie, Sasha, this is Eren. Eren, Connie and Sasha.”

The other girl pauses with the loaf in her mouth and waves, before continuing to scrub the stones left bare between rugs with her rag. Eren nods back – wants to say  _we don’t have time for you to introduce me to everyone_ – but is interrupted as he opens his mouth to speak, a common theme.

“So  _you’re_ Eren!” Connie nearly exclaims, eagerly shakes his hand (Eren’s eyebrows creep up higher and higher, he can’t help it) and looks him up and down with an appraising eye. “Little scrawnier than I imagined… from the way they talked about you at first, I’d have thought you were some kinda god.”

He swallows the immediate retort at the slight against his stature (which is a couple of inches taller than Armin,  _thank you very much_ ), he glances first to Armin and then to Mikasa; he blushes, she only looks right back at him.

_We’ve been here too long,_ he thinks suddenly, realizes he said it out loud when their expressions immediately sober.

Connie grins. “Go be a hero,” he says to Eren. Then to Armin and Mikasa, “write us a couple letters, huh? We’re gonna miss you.”

Eren starts away, Mikasa right beside him; Armin issues halfhearted goodbyes, unwilling to leave seven years behind him without at least some acknowledgment of time spent experiences shared friendships forged - or maybe he's thinking too deeply about it. They don't seem sad to see Mikasa and Armin go.

But the blond boy keeps glancing back, as Mikasa very gently usurps the lead, and Eren rescinds without complaint; she knows the place better than he does, he thinks, justifies. Even though it wracks his nerves to spend any more time in this wing. It feels lived-in, to him, as if someone had just strolled through the hallway, boots sinking into the lush red carpet and eyes sweeping proudly over the metal-laced windows set into light stone walls. Like he can feel someone breathing, the air whistling in and out of their lungs automatically. The weight of a halberd in hand, incredibly unnecessary, he thinks, bored out of his mind, lazily leaning against a wall and mostly staring at nothing, except there's a smudge of dark in the corner of his vision and he blinks -

\- blinks, and he has his hands tangled in Mikasa's and Armin's sleeves, pulls them hard down with him behind the curved arm of a chair, smashing his forehead on wood filigree and that is going to sting in the morning. Armin lets out a surprised huff of air on the way down, while Mikasa’s lips stay pursed; Eren whispers “Guard,” as quietly as he can, elicits a glimmer of understanding from the both of them.

Armin takes over from there, scans their surroundings to find another way forward, the T-section before them placed off-limits by the aforementioned obstacle; gives Eren a moment to consider what had been the theme of his thoughts just before, brushes it off as a heavy case of nerves. He has waited for this day for a long time.

The weight of the pack on his back is oddly reassuring, the cloth padding guarding the parts of the two sets of Maneuver Gear from grinding against each other as they rise into crouches, follow Armin’s lead as he guides them back the way they came, along the wall, holding close to the stone until they round the corner.

As one, they release breaths they hadn’t realized they’d been holding, whistling out between their teeth as they straighten; Eren rolls his shoulders, Armin turns back –

“The hell?”

Spines stiffen. Eren looks past Armin, to the guard halted in the middle of the hallway, eyebrow quirked in confusion.  _Shit._

The man clucks his tongue after a moment, snorts. “The cleaning crew, eh? Sneaking away to go slack off for a couple o’ hours? I would too, ta be completely honest.”

Eren does not know how to respond, and has a feeling Mikasa doesn’t either. But Armin saves them again, is quick enough to nod and look appropriately ashamed. He turns toward the guard, channels the most pathetic voice he can muster. “They have us cleaning the route to the dungeon today. Mold allergies…”

The guard guffaws, relaxes his grip on his halberd. “Alright, alright. Skedaddle for a few hours and I won’t tell nobody I saw you –“ he peers at Eren suddenly, eyes raking down his clothes. “That ain’t a maid uniform. Where you from?”

The clothes he wears are simple, but they are not the white shirt, white pants ensemble of the castle servants. Armin answers before he can open his mouth. “He’s a stablehand. They pulled everyone they could inside… they want it  _really clean._ ” He stresses the last two words, leans on them heavily. Perhaps too heavily; there’s a tone of desperation in his voice that shouldn’t be there.

“Must be Levi in charge, then,” the soldier nods. “The man’s nuts. Hell of a good fighter, but  _nuts._ ”

Eren thinks maybe he doesn’t give Armin’s acting enough credit, then, as the guard lets them pass; they do so tentatively, Eren trying to share a glance with Mikasa, but she doesn’t look back, doesn’t even hesitate.

“Oi, horse-boy,” the soldier calls out after them, picking out Eren in particular just as they’re about to turn the corner. “What’s with the bag?”

Put on the spot unexpectedly, he fumbles; tenses visibly, glances to Armin for help, who looks as surprised and off-balance as he feels.

“Rags,” Mikasa offers lamely at their hesitation. The lie is so conspicuous it falls flat on the carpet. (Eren winces inwardly.)

“Hnn.” The man draws the skeptical noise out between his lips, rumbling deep in his throat. His once-amiable look replaced by suspicion, he motions with one hand. “Let me take a look-see, then.”

They’re running and it takes him a moment to shout, but then he does, the sound carrying past them as they flee; there are no guards hanging around near the dungeon, and it’s an unspoken agreement to find a door that leads down that way, even though the decorations are quickly getting richer as they run, there are paintings mounted on the wall he notices when he shouldn’t and he thinks remembers that that detail is  _not good_  but he can’t remember why.

Guard sees them runs towards them hang a hard  _right_  down the next hall, there’s a suit of armor, he would curse if there were breath left in his lungs and then Armin beside him is faltering scrabbles grips onto his sleeve, hauls him along with and hopes that the soldiers pursuing them will be too weighted down by their armor (steel plate, he thinks, glad he’s remembered one thing from those years of working with Hannes) to keep chasing them for long. Thinks that this is eerily similar to  _that night,_ the only thing missing is dark and smoke and a man with a roll of tobacco –

his foot catches on a soft-hard something that definitely had not been there, and Eren trips, forward and falling hard, tries to let go of Armin as he goes down but his hand is caught and his friend stumbles too, Eren’s face scrapes against the rough rug and burns, his stomach plummets  _down down down_ as a hand finds purchase in the back collar of his shirt and pulls him upright and

it is over, five or six or seven soldiers surround them with sharp tips of spears pointing at them, Mikasa is still standing but the fight goes out of her when she looks at Armin on the ground and Eren being forced into a kneel. The soldiers are all tall men, faces carefully impassive; they are not the incompetent fools from the East Wing, these are the king’s Royal Guard, as evidenced by the crest spread across each of their breastplates.

Eren doesn’t quit. (He has always been bad at that.) He tries to pull away from the hand holding him captive, twists and throws an elbow back, but he misses and is rewarded for his efforts by the hand moving to his hair instead, taking hold of a great handful and pulling  _hard,_ hard enough that he yelps as he feels chunks being torn out of his scalp.

A foot plants itself on his back, forces him down further, and only then does he realize the weight of the pack is missing from between his shoulder blades. Eren can’t see it from where he is, and that makes the situation seem even worse.

“Take those to a cell,” a voice like smoke says. “I’ll deal with them later.”

Armin rises to his feet shakily, ignoring Mikasa’s hand; he only looks at Eren for a moment, but that second is enough to shatter him. There’s no blame in his blue eyes, but there’s also no hope, no faith.

He’d made a promise, and he had let them down.

His head dips, a motion which the hand allows, and he feels Mikasa looking at him but he can’t bear to look up again, stares at the floor resolutely until the sound of footsteps has withered away.

His captor barks at the soldiers to carry on doing something else; apparently he feels capable of handling Eren on his own, though in his present state that isn’t much of a challenge. He is quietly angry but more grossly upset, as he glares at the floor between his knees. Realizes that it hadn’t been so strange that Armin and Mikasa’s friends had not said proper goodbyes.

None of them expected him to succeed in the first place. It was a doomed venture from the start.

“Get up,” his captor says, bends down to hiss it low in his ear, like tendrils of tobacco smoke winding into his system and making him gag.

He hesitates, is rewarded for the delay by another vicious yank of his hair. “I didn’t break your legs, so do something  _useful_ with them.”

Eren bites his tongue and gathers his legs beneath himself, stands slowly, as if expecting to be pushed down again; when the hand releases its grip, he rises to his full height, the side of his face burning and his knees aching.

Tries to turn to see the face of the one who had been holding him down, but is pulled forward suddenly, guided along by that hand fisting in the front of his shirt and hauling him down the hall. He digs his heels in, to no avail; blinks and finally stares at the man, the soldier dressed in field uniform with the cravat tied neatly around his neck and he’s shorter shorter than he expected and he  _remembers –_

“You,” Eren says blankly, green eyes wide.

The man looks back at him, mouth twisted in irritation, sharp stormcloud eyes piercing. “What the  _fuck_ are you looking at, brat,” he says, and it is jarring, the vitriol in his tone, but it seems disconnected like oil on water and the way he  _glances_ at the soldiers standing sentry along the walls nearby... the words leave Eren more confused than offended, though a wave of indignation surges up for a moment and he stifles it.

Then he is being led through the two symmetrical rows of soldiers to the double doors set at the end of the hall, two stories tall slabs of dark wood with carvings etched gently into them, and comprehension dawns on him.

They’d run straight to the throne room, hadn’t they.

He realizes he will be meeting the King face-to-face at the same moment he remembers his pack is missing – recognizes it hanging from  _that soldier’s_ fist, knows better than to make a grab for it as he remembers his acidic tone and knows that he is  _not fucking around._

A few seconds slip past his awareness, as he blinks and he’s on his knees again, the forming bruises protesting; he gets a moment to see a form settled easily in the large throne on the dais before him, and a tall man with neatly-arranged blond hair near to him before his eyes are forced down.

“What’s this you’ve got, Levi?”one of the new men says, proud, confident, disdainful. His tone sets Eren’s teeth on edge immediately, and it’s a moment before he realizes there is a name attached to the statement, a name attached to his soldier.

_Levi –_

“I was alerted to the fact that a few brats had been spotted parading around the castle by a guard in the East Wing,” his captor responds, sounding disinterested; Eren imagines the flat expression on his visage. “Two of them were servants; I’ll deal with them accordingly, unless Dawk happens to decide to stop being a useless piece of shit and keep an eye on the street rats under his care.”

“And this one?”

There is a bare beat of pause, hanging over the edge of what feels like a cliff; Eren’s heart, racing, stutters over a beat as Levi hesitates.  _Why?_ “A trespasser of some sort. His presence further illustrates the Military Police’s incompetence; that a mere boy was able to sneak in undetected is almost offensive.”

“I see,” one of the men rumbles; Eren begins to suspect it is the King Levi speaks to so easily, wonders how that is. “And the bag?”

“A possession of the boy’s,” Levi states, and he hears the rustle of the strings holding it closed being untied and tugged open, a clank of metal as the pieces of the gear shift around inside.

He probably holds up one of the pieces, as who Eren figures to be the king lets out a loud “ah!” of recognition. “The machine I commissioned from Hannes! I had been expecting the man himself.

“Boy,” he says, and it takes the young man a moment to realize the King is speaking to him, “are you the man’s apprentice?”

Levi yanks him up by the hair, allows him to look the king in the eye, as much as is possible from fifty feet away; the momentousness of the occasion is lost on Eren, who bites back a sudden snarl, forgets why the sight of this man fills him with so much anger but knows that it’s  _justified._ “Yes,” he manages to respond –

feels the object strung around his neck, that sits under his shirt has sat tucked there for  _years_  and should  _stay there_  slip, jostled by the continuous movement and manhandling as his scalp tingles and burns and his face tingles and burns and his knees pulse, slip out as he is pushed down again; the prong of the key hangs on the collar of his shirt for the span of a single rabbit-heart beat, and then it comes loose, the bronze metal swinging in full view of his audience.

Silence draws out. The blond man still has not spoken; the King’s next words are a rasp. “Levi.”

He does not answer with words; Eren assumes it is a glance, in some corner of his mind that is not preoccupied with watching the key swing helplessly from his neck, remembering the shadow of an event, his father’s stern words:  _“Guard it with your life. Don’t let anyone see it.”_

Doesn’t remember why that’s so important, and  _why doesn’t he remember?_

His head aches. He nearly cries out, the sudden white-hot pulse between his eyes, hears the muddled “- that key, please,” from the head of the room between waves of pain, and does not resist when Levi keeps him down with his knee between his shoulder blades, reaches forward to pull the twine from his neck with a rough tug.

“ _Yeager,_ ” the king spits, as if it leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and Eren flinches and looks up, realizes the hand is missing from his hair, realizes that his response makes the man on the throne even more livid, and he is missing something but he isn’t sure what, isn’t sure about  _anything_ besides pain and anger and foggy confusion.

And he is also sure that the king knows him, knows his identity, as the key marks him as his father’s son, but he has no idea why that  _matters;_ tries to remember, tries to think; what had his father  _done - ?_

He lets out a choking, spluttering sort of noise, his mouth filling with blood and his nose and head burning. The taste of copper is choking, and he spits without seeing, forgets he is on nice carpet or perhaps doesn’t care. He barely registers the suddenly firm sharp point of Levi’s boot digging into his spine, the soldier’s heated growl,  _“fucking disgusting,”_ but he sobers up enough, regains awareness enough to realize that the king is about to speak.

“How will Hannes react when he learns he has shared house and home with scum of this sort?” he wonders aloud, appears not to realize that his audience hears every single word. The man shifts on his throne. “He is to be put to the sword,” he says firmly. The phrase hangs for a moment in the still air.

Eren feels himself going very pale, very fast; he doesn’t dare move, and Levi does not take motion either. The man who has been standing silently by is the first to stir, speaks quietly, in a voice plainer than anything the young man had expected: “Your Majesty,” he begins, “if I may.”

“Speak, Erwin,” the king bids him with a lack of inflection, flicks a few ringed fingers on his hand as invitation, though his eyes are still hot and burning, gaze firmly placed on Eren and the key that hangs from Levi’s hand.

“Has he shown signs of a Talent?” he asks, looks at Levi; the wording of the question is lost on Eren in his befuddled state of mind, but he thinks he’s heard that term somewhere before, isn’t sure what to associate it with.

“No,” his soldier says, flat and firm, drops the answer on the ground like a lump of trash. “Nor does he have enough brains to figure out how to hide it. He’s an ordinary piece of shit.”

Eren does not take insults laying down, but he is pinned and he bites his tongue, files the remark away for later when he figures out some way to pay Levi back; the scathing remark is the only bit of the conversation that is not above his head (though it is,  _literally_ ) and so he clings to it as if to pretend he understands  _something._

“However, he is of the blood,” the king says, and  _that_ phrase sets off warning bells in his head, connects a few dots that had been waiting to be connected, blinks away the rest of his dizziness because  _that’s what they meant, they’re suggesting that he –_

“His mother –“ the king begins, but Eren does not hear that part, does not notice lips moving to shape words before a deep, irritated, angry growl rebounds automatically from the depths of his throat.

_“I’m not a fucking inkblood,”_ he declares, realizes he’s looking at the floor again; it’s for the best, as the sudden look of rage that flits across the king’s face at having been interrupted is vitriolic, but he spits his words like he’s spitting blood at the lines of mortar between stones, or the red carpet or the side of Levi’s other foot that he can see from his position. “I’m not one of those monsters,” he protests, argues, pleads.  _“I’m human!”_

The silence that falls is heavier than the one before, tense like a quivering bowstring; the room’s occupants hold their breaths, it seems, lest the air is sucked from their throats. Eren feels breathless, at least, draws every muscle in his body taut in defense.

It is just in time.

There’s a sudden whistle following the abrupt release of pressure from his back; then an impact that throws his head hard to the side, knocks his teeth together and bruises his face; it hurts like  _hell_ and his ears ring and then there’s another, throws him the other way, and  _another, another,_ he lets out a pained whine, and everything goes white.

A while before his hearing returns. It is first, a steady whine in place of the empty silence that had come before, resounds in his head like the buzz of twenty thousand angry hornets.

Then the pain hits, and he lets out a sudden, pitiful groan. The sound is forced into the carpet upon which he lays, lips and mouth pressed against it. Struggles to shift, but his muscles scream at him for even trying. Tries to relax them, gently  _gently,_ finds he can hear people talking if he listens hard, and he does.

He picks out Levi’s voice immediately, thinks he must not have been out for long. “- trash,” he comprehends the first word. “If he had any aptitude, whatever blood he could have been hiding would’ve fought back whether he wanted to or not. I beat the brat within a few inches of his shitty life,” he says. “There’s not a special drop in him.”

“Grisha Yeager’s work has been lost to history,” someone else begins, and Eren thinks it might be the blond man speaking, the one who had spoken with skepticism. “Or so it is believed. A scientist could never bring himself to destroy his own creation – the creation that you seek, Your Majesty.” Room for a reply. Nothing is spoken. “There is a reasonable chance that this key corresponds to a lock; an even greater chance that that lock is related to Dr. Yeager’s research. It seems likely he had spoken to his son about it; failing that, the boy most likely has some sort of clue that would be of more use to the search than to go without.” The fraction of a pause. “He himself is of more use to us alive than dead.”

“What is it you propose, Erwin?”

No hesitation.

“An expedition to Shinganshina with him in tow.”

A noncommittal hum is the first response. “The last you’ve reported, Shinganshina has been overrun by monsters.”

“Levi’s unit is ideal for an infiltration and recovery mission.”

“Wouldn’t a battalion be safer?”

Levi speaks up. “A shitload of incompetent soldiers will trip over each other and get all of us killed. I’ll have my hands full making sure this little shit doesn’t get gutted; do you  _really_ think I can babysit thirty greenhorns who don’t know the tip of a sword from its fucking handle?”

“There’s no room for error,” Erwin placates, restates without the disenchanted roughness of Levi’s style of speaking. “The Yeager boy is enough of an unknown variable. There are two sets of the Three-Dimensional Maneuver Gear in his bag; it’s reasonable to assume that one of them belongs to him, and that he is fairly proficient in its operation, if nothing else. Even so, there’s no way to know whether he will cooperate or attempt to rebel.”

“I don’t care either way,” his soldier interjects blandly. “I doubt he’ll be of any use in a fight, whether he’s on our side or not. My unit isn’t a fucking escort team; this brat’ll be the only exception I’ll ever make.”

The king lets out a sudden guffaw, then, and the reaction surprises Eren, jolts him back to full awareness; he’d been hovering on the border of conscious and unconscious, letting the words wash over him without much meaning. In the meantime, his legs had gone numb, the blood in them stilling – he shifts and they come alive with pins and needles, the intensity of which cause him to inhale a sudden, shaky, gurgling breath.

That sound halts the conversation above him. The sudden quiet rings in his ears, but he can’t find the strength to gather his palms under himself and push up; the mere act of breathing in and out is as difficult as lifting the world onto his shoulders, and his ribs ache with the pass of each gulp of air, bruise in the memory of Levi’s boot.

“I’m putting him under your care, Levi,” the King says, terse in a way he hadn’t been before. The words feel like cold water slipping into Eren’s ears, though he only half-comprehends their meaning. “Ensure he doesn’t become a distraction.”

“If he turns traitor,” his soldier is saying, “I’m certain I can kill him. The only problem is, I doubt I can do any less.”

Then he’s being lifted by the back of his shirt, and the sudden movement jostles every single injury his body can complain about; there is one sudden all-consuming pulse, the pain echoing in his limbs muscles deep in his bones

and then he is gone.


	3. Bloodmouth, Part the Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he'd tried to sneak into a castle, this wasn't how he had expected events to turn out. But in Eren's opinion, it's a lot better than being thrown in a dungeon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there!
> 
> I bet you first noticed the changed name of the fic. I groused a bit over whether or not to rename it, as I've been beginning to get frustrated with its old name (it was sort of a spur-of-the-moment name), and I decided just to do it. I hope it's not too confusing.  
> Sorry again for the slow update! I edit as I go, so I can post the chapter right when I finish - which is, predictably, right before I have to work. (Are you seeing a theme here yet?)  
> A bit of exposition in this chapter, but some things do happen. The real action will start next chapter, though, don't worry. (The slow build tag is there for a reason!)  
> Will I stop ending these notes with parenthetical comments? (No.)
> 
> Enjoy!

_Fire eats the sky, rises up in blazing fangs; sparks fly up, upwards, burn brightly against sun-drenched orange clouds, like stars falling to earth. The sky and the earth are both an inferno. Hot sun beats down relentlessly, bakes the dusty, barren ground beneath, sears into his skin his eyes his mind as the aroma, the stench of burning causes his fists to clench and his nostrils to flare._

_There’s smoke and fear and the loud crackle of the inferno. He’s never liked smoke, the way it presses up against his face and worms down into his throat with a burn, and it billows into his eyes and obscures what he’s looking at, the walls of the Ackerman house half-cast in shadow and half-lit by the flames that ravage its wood roof and char the stones that form its walls._

_He should hear yelling, a shrill sound leaving Armin’s throat as he holds Mikasa back from running into her home, calling her parents with a voice as broken as the door rocking on one hinge in the soldiers’ wake – but he doesn’t, there is nothing but the snap-crackle of the blaze and the reek the stench the aroma of burning. The smoke thickens again, swirls around him, wipes Mikasa’s home out of existence; he coughs and his eyes water and the trails of it sneak down into his lungs. He turns –_

_and he is staring into a stern, sharp face, defined features and thin fingers clasping a roll of tobacco, and his lips part, gently gently just a sliver, exhales smoke that brushes across his face, the same color as wintry eyes._

Eren sits up before he realizes he’s even awake, faster than he’s moved for a while, judging by the sudden wave of nausea that hits him. Then he’s bending over, hunched at the shoulders and laying a hand against his ribs, fingertips grazing over fabric and brushing skin and he hisses – _what the hell?_

The events of the last day crash over him, and he tenses automatically. Remembers being kicked, beaten, over and over again and then lifted and carried to God knows where –

Tensing’s the wrong thing, his muscles shout and bunch and there’s a half-gasp that slips out between his lips, the pain a blunt wash more than a sudden burn but it still hurts like _hell._ His other hand curls, fingers grasping the sheet cast across his legs and lower body; it’s then that he realizes he’s on a bed. Looks down at himself, sees the white stripes of bandages wound around his injuries from the way his shirt is hiked up a bit on the left side.

His ribs and stomach are wrapped up tight, he realizes, lifting the edge of the shirt – that he notices doesn’t belong to him, the crisp white matching the bandages. But he’s relieved to see that he’s still wearing his own pants.

It’s then that he decides to raise his head and look around the room he’s in.

The first thing that strikes him are the lack of decorations. The floor and walls are barren stone, unremarkable aside from a door across the room and a window set in the wall closest to him; the bed he’s in is small, is situated against a back corner, and there’s a small table beside it and a chair but not much besides – oddly – a worn-looking, overstuffed armchair situated in the opposite corner.

As his eyes fall on the piece of furniture, the door issues a loud creak and swings open – or, more precisely, budges open a few inches and then hovers there, as someone outside huffs loudly and gives a great heave, barging through back-first and mumbling.

Brown hair pulled up into a frazzled half-bun, a plain shirt covering the expanse of shoulders and back that are visible, coupled with a pair of worn trousers, and a feminine voice muttering viciously. “Astounding,” he manages to catch. “Not a speck of dust to be found, yet the hinges are as stiff as –“

The room’s earlier occupant realizes he is staring when the stranger turns, still grumbling, toting something clasped in firm arms, eyes magnified by a pair of glasses falling on him.

“ _Oh!_ ” she exclaims, just as a vague “Um,” slips out from between Eren’s lips; he flinches away automatically as she is then _right beside him,_ mere centimeters between her face and his – but he is suddenly aware that she’s staring at something on his face, rather than at him, at the same time she inquires, “Does it sting?”

Eren still blinks. Once. Twice.

Then he’s probing at the skin of his left cheek with one hand, fingertips grazing over the flesh until – there, a large scrape all the way down his jaw. He maps it with butterfly fingers. “It’s tender,” he answers, “but no, it doesn’t sting…”

This situation confuses him. The last he remembers, Levi had been taking him away. Levi, the one who had kicked the shit out of him _himself._

He tries not to think about it, as the space between his temples gives a throb; his knuckles move up to massage it, the action going unnoticed as the woman has turned away, moving to pick up the thing she had been carrying: a metal washbasin, with water sloshing around inside.

“Good morning, Mr. Yeager,” she says, balancing it neatly on the wooden chair stationed beside the bed.

“You know my name?” Eren asks without thinking.

“All of the scouts know about Grisha Yeager,” she says by way of response; his mouth opens, but she continues speaking, wetting a rag in the washbasin and promptly wringing it out. “Many of the Scouting Legion’s higher officers know that he had a son. And the King knows that _you’re_ his son.” It is only as she says this that she actually looks at Eren, really looks at him, and he feels as if his insides are being examined by those glass-enlarged eyes. “I know your father’s name, but not _your_ name. So, then… what _is_ your name?”

He gapes like a fish out of water for a moment or two, digesting what she had said, before he finds his words and is able to answer.

“E-Eren,” he says, more stutters, but he squares his shoulders and says it more firmly. “My name is Eren.”

She stares at him for a moment, hands stilling in the washbasin, but then she chuckles and looks away for a moment, leaves the wetted rag draped over the edge of the bucket as she reaches out a damp hand. “Well then, Eren Yeager, I’m Hanji Zoe. It’s nice to meet you.”

His eyebrows furrow, but he returns the handshake. “Just Eren,” he says, but blinks after the words leave his mouth, as if they had done so without his permission. “Please.”

She quirks a russet eyebrow, but doesn’t comment, instead returning to the washbasin; her hands curl around the edges before she pauses, hesitates. “You know...” the words fall out, passing through the small gap between her lips, seeming pensive, thoughtful, “I should tell him that you’re awake. He’ll probably want to speak with you as soon as possible.”

Then the bucket is being set on the floor, and she is on her feet and leaving, stepping over it and towards the door; the only answer she tosses back to the questioning “He?” that leaves Eren’s mouth is a conspiratorial wink, and then the door clicks behind her.

And he is left to watch the lukewarm water slosh from one side to the other, eyes following the idle motion as the liquid in the container returns slowly to a flat surface, to equilibrium.

 

 

He’s taken to looking out the window in the meantime, sitting up in bed with his arms draped in his lap, pointedly immersing himself in the world outside in order to avoid the events of the last –

“Three days,” is the first thing he hears, an irritated half-growl that precedes even the sound of the door opening, and then Eren is jerking back, spine straight and wide green eyes lingering on the entrance of the room.

There’s a form squared in the doorway. A form that looks conspicuously familiar; signature boots, white pants, white shirt, jacket, _cravat –_

“Levi.” He can’t help the startled gasp that escapes him, just as the man’s mouth opens to deliver another scathing remark; he pauses, his soldier pauses, gives a look of what might have been honest surprise had it belonged to anything other than stormy eyes.

Eren’s out of bed and standing before he’s aware. A trace of dizziness but he’s fine, shakes it away, squares his shoulders, _why is he correcting his posture,_ he wonders at instincts taking over before he understands the reasons, maybe it’s that – that he hadn’t put up a fight when he’d been beaten by the man before him, he doesn’t want to appear any weaker than he already does _yes that’s right he –_

“You’ve grown,” Levi says flatly, looking Eren up and down. “But you’re still the same cheeky brat, aren’t you. That’s _Corporal_ to you, _Yeager._ ”

“Eren,” he finds the bravery to say. His hands tighten into fists against his sides, his nails digging into his palms as if struggling against something, stares resolutely at the ground between Levi’s boots – and he is still standing in the doorway, he has not budged. “My name is Eren.”

A beat of silence stretches out. And then another. And another and another.

Levi takes a step, the heels of his boots clacking against the ground. Eren flinches back as the soldier stalks toward him, looks (up) at him, it’s bizarre again to notice he is taller, but then he is speaking.

 _“Sir,”_ he emphasizes, draws Eren’s glance, his chin jerking up, fingers unfurling. (He had been tensing for a hit, he realizes.)

There’s a firmness in his expression, firmer than usual, that makes him seem six inches taller and towering – but it’s not anger that clouds his gaze, it’s something unreadable, lingering in eyes the color of fog (and he doesn’t know how yet to see through that haze, but he thinks he might want to). “’My name is Eren,’ _sir._ What kind of shit-for-brains addresses his commanding officer in a tone like that?”

Eren’s lips part in shock. He means to say _what,_ but his instinct for self-preservation kicks in, and it’s more a garbled, inquiring “Sir - ?” that comes out past the confused blockage in his throat. _Commanding officer...?_

Levi sighs then. Actually sighs, and while there’s only the delicate whistle of his breath through his nose to signify it, Eren knows enough about the man to know that the gesture equates to a full-bodied slouch and dizzying roll of the eyes – but the thought is shallow, only superficial, as then his soldier is moving, a pale finger extended towards the bed as he orders “Sit,” much like a mutt’s master, hooking his ankle around one of the legs of the chair nearby and pulling it to himself less-than-gently.

Eren sits.

He gathers the hem of his shirt in his fingers idly as Levi crosses one ankle across his other knee, leans back against the support and regards Eren wordlessly. Blue-green-teal eyes meet gray for one beat, then two, until the intensity of the soldier’s gaze and narrow lids cause a shiver to run down Eren’s spine and through his frame; he hides the flinch by shifting his line of sight towards the weathered floorboards again, compares his bare feet to the leather boots melded around the corporal’s.

“I –“

“Can you fight?” he asks over the top of Eren, one skeptical eyebrow raised, as if an affirmative is doubtful.

Eren’s eyebrows furrow in response. “Sir –“

“Can you _fight,_ Yeager,” he interrupts again. Possibly Levi’s version of impatience. Not annoyance – he seems perpetually annoyed, but Eren thinks an annoyed Levi would be thumbing out a roll of tobacco or tapping the toes of his boots against the floor, drumming his fingers against the back of the chair he has his arm slung over, tossing even cruder phrases around.

He doesn’t know why he assumes this, but it seems to fit. Regardless, he’s smart enough to know which buttons can be pushed and which shouldn’t be. He thinks. He hopes.

The tenseness in Levi’s jaw is met by the same from Eren, as he dips his head, nods a confirmation. “A little,” he amends, because it’s true. He can scuffle with the best, but a blade is only an acquaintance in hand, a leather-wrapped handle unwieldy in his fingers.

“Hnn.” There’s a tight-lipped noncommittal noise that the corporal makes deep in his throat. "Looks like Erwin had a point."

Eren's fingers tangle further in white fabric. "I don't understand," he says finally. The thought strikes him that perhaps Levi means to speak above him, highlight the fact that he has no idea what's going on, _no idea,_ because he remembers his foot colliding with his face, venomous words and an angry king and Mikasa and Armin and _faithless blue eyes._

He feels the fabric of the bandage wound around his midriff as his muscles tense, his shoulders hunch, bow with the weight of confusion and frustration. "Tell me what's going on," he doesn't ask; the words leave him, true, but there is no submission, no inquiry in them.

His eyes are angry, teal fire blazing against an impassive grey sky.

Levi looks at him for a long moment. Just looks, not speaking, not stirring; it's as if no breath stirs the space between them, the air so flat and the room so quiet he is sure the corporal must hear the beating of his heart.

He stands. It is sudden, as if the slight man merely unfolds, flows into the position in the space of a blink, a flutter of lids. "Get your boots," he says, tips his head towards the foot of Eren's bed, next to which they sit.

The young man swallows hard, forces some words back, but he can't pin them all under his tongue and behind his teeth. "You -" he begins heatedly, can't restrain himself.

Levi goes tense, framed in the doorway. It is evidenced in the way his feet slip slightly further apart. "Get the fuck up, Yeager, or I'll leave you here to be executed at some pompous bastard's leisure. You're enough of a pain in the ass to escort to Shinganshina without you defying orders."

Eren sees his face in profile, the soldier turning the barest fraction of an inch to regard him with one steely, narrowed eye. His next words are cold and sharp as metal. "From here on out, you're my property. Get used to it."

 

 

There is a single sword standing between him and the man before him, poised ten paces away; the midmorning sunlight glints off the blade of his weapon, its steel edge not as familiar as he’d like it to be –

_but the one that belongs to him lays on the dusty ground somewhere, weighed comfortably in his hand as he watches the sun go down, not once did it occur to him that Hannes was anything besides a cowardly drunk old man, that he could be right for once; a vicious howl in the rise of night, racing, racing away, half-standing in the saddle looking for a patrol group, safety in numbers and –_

_the dire wolf hot on his heels, it’s a big one, bigger than his_ fucking horse, _and he isn’t good enough to hang on, the swing casts back and the creature’s jaws close on the sharp blade, yanks it out of his grip with a pained roar and a splatter of blood droplets, hot and steaming and staining his sleeve and it falls back, falls back just as he sees torches streaming towards him, the drum of hoofbeats –_

the balance is a tad off, it doesn’t feel as natural as it should, but it’s the closest they had in the armory and they’re standing against a corner of the training field but he can still feel eyes on him, _“who’s that sparring with the corporal,”_ but he keeps his eyes trained on the man before him, the tip of his sword drifting down to rest parallel to his calf.

There’s one blade in each of Levi’s hands. Thin and super-sharp, Eren doesn’t recognize the metal, doesn’t recognize the method by which they have been forged – but the soldier is not intent on waiting around, isn’t intent on playing entirely fair, it seems, as the moment the young man’s head cocks to the side almost absently, he springs into motion, crosses the distance between them and swings both blades together in a twirling cleave, bottom right across to the top left.

 _Clang._ Eren’s sword is there, the twin impacts sending jolts through his arm and he feels it tingle, but there’s no time to pause as the shorter of them presses his advantage, forces Eren onto the defensive. He isn’t making it difficult, his two blades operating in tandem rather than independently, but the brunette is forced back one step and then another, frantically raising his sword to deflect every slash.

He catches one of the swords, sword-edge to sword-edge; there’s a loud teeth-chattering scream as they slide against each other, till Levi’s sword reaches the crook between the blade and hilt. Eren takes a chance, shoves him hard back, thrusts in the gap that is sure to open as the soldier regains control of the sword –

he’s forgotten about the other one, as Levi uses the flat of his other blade to deflect, sets the blow off-balance, traps Eren’s sword between both of his and _twists._

It flies out of his hand, falls to the ground with a clatter, and in the next moment he freezes, bright green-blue-teal eyes flashing down as his chest heaves, the cold edge of one of Levi’s swords resting gently gently against the skin of his neck, the vein pulsing therein.

The other man doesn’t even appear fazed. His poise, his posture is impeccable, his spine straight and his expression unchanging; he pulls his blade away from Eren’s throat and takes a slow step back, runs grey eyes over the pristine metal with a critical stare.

“Again,” he says, kicks Eren’s downed sword over to him with one foot.

It’s a struggle to force air into the bottoms of his lungs; he’s short of breath, and his lips start to form words, a frown, a plea – but he hesitates, just for a moment, remembers a castle hallway, a throne room, blue eyes turn to gray turn even darker, smiling and scuffling and.

Why is he still here?

He’s failed. What is there left?

A gentle breeze picks up, ruffles through his brown hair, stirs the fabric of his white shirt and brown trousers. Then Levi’s standing right in front of him, he notices, fists unclenching in surprise as he notes that the soldier has sheathed his swords, one on each hip, and holds the loaner out to him, something sharp and unreadable in the turn of his lips.

“Those friends of yours are fine,” he says, ignores the way Eren’s eyebrows leap up and the way his eyes brighten, responds to them only by straightening his arm further, holds the handle closer to the young man. “There’s nothing you can do for them right now besides doing what you’re told, brat. The sooner you get your shit together, the sooner we can get back from Shinganshina and give the king some results. I’m giving you a chance to curry favor.” He turns his head somewhat to the side. “I told you I’d keep them alive, didn’t I? Don’t take a dump on my efforts.”

He takes the sword, wraps his fingers around the handle, careful of Levi’s; pulls it to himself with a nod and squared shoulders. “Yes, sir,” he says, because it feels necessary, and it feels right; would salute, but he’s not a soldier, _does he count as one now?_

“Focus, Yeager,” the corporal responds, drawing his swords again and putting distance between them. “Get your head out of your ass and watch carefully. I wouldn’t want to miss and cut what little balls you have clean off.”

“Sir!”

 

 

He’s panting, has fallen to his knees sometime after the third flick of Levi’s sword to his throat; gathers the fabric of his pants in his fists and lets his shoulders heave with his chest, in and out, gulping in air. The corporal stands over him, looking down, swords and hands firm; his movements are slow and purposeful as he sheathes both of his blades and moves back a step, the voice that leaves his lips vaguely disapproving. “Three to zero, Yeager. A shitty display. Makes me wonder if you’re even trying.”

“I told you,” Eren snaps back, too tired to restrain the heated words. Harsh discipline of his tongue isn’t practiced enough to be automatic, even in the soldier’s presence, and it’s enough of a struggle to even speak, let alone monitor the words and the tone in which he says them to avoid lighting the man’s short fuse.

It’s only their third real meeting, after all.

“I didn’t learn to _fight._ I’m not a soldier.”

Levi scoffs lightly. “A fucking embarrassment is what you are. You wave that sword around like a pointy stick. If you’re not careful, you could poke your eye out.”

Progress is halting, but Eren makes it to his feet in a few seconds, sways gently before gritting his teeth and meeting Levi’s eyes with determination. _I’m not weak. I won’t show him weakness,_ he thinks, over and over, like a mantra.

If it’s about currying favor, then the first step is to earn respect. Levi’s respect.

He might not be a seasoned swordfighter, but he’s the only expert on Hannes’ maneuver gear that exists. An unfair example, true – but then again, he has always been good at –

“Hand to hand,” he growls, demands of Levi, unbuckles the sword belt from his waist and throws the hardened leather to the ground. His shoulders sit square as their eyes meet, across the ten feet that stands between them, dirt smeared across Eren’s sweat-slicked forehead and down his arms, a bubble of calm surrounding them even as other trainees spar loudly some distance away.

A breeze stirs through Levi’s immaculate locks, ruffles the frills of his cravat, sweeps across to provide welcome relief to the flush under Eren’s skin.

“Tch.” The noise of annoyance escapes the corporal as he pivots on one heel, unbuckles his own sword belt in one motion and slips his uniform jacket off with the other; there’s a post hammered into the ground nearby, used as a practice dummy, undoubtedly, and he drapes the jacket and belt across it delicately, pointedly assuring neither the sleeves nor the buckle reach close enough to the ground to stand any chance of being dirtied.

The impeccably white fabric of the man’s shirt causes Eren’s stomach to give a twinge. He knows how cautious Levi seems to be of filth and grime, the artful ways thus far he has managed to avoid even so much as brushing up against Eren or the dusty ground. Hand-to-hand is notably more intimate; what sort of punishment will the corporal exact if he ends up covered in dirt –

this is the excuse he presents to himself, hurriedly and blatantly ignoring the way his eyes begin to trace the shape of shoulders, arms, sides visible where his clothing suggests at the man’s rigid frame. It’s good the workout has left him with blood heated, else –

“Are you done staring, you cocky brat?” he rasps, running a hand up across the back of his head, skimming the short-cropped bristles underneath and sweeping up through hair as black as ink. Levi retakes his typical place, his eyes narrow, narrower than usual, his eyebrows drawing close together as judging gray cast up and down Eren’s frame once again, reaffirming, reassessing.

Eren clears his throat and looks away, would try to defend himself if not for the way the words get stuck in his throat. “You’re wearing white,” he ends up saying instead.

“Groundbreaking observation, Yeager,” he says flatly, shoots back, the sarcasm embedded in his flat tone.

He’s already made the decision not to pull his punches, if there had even been a choice in the matter, so there are no more words to be said. There’s some unspoken agreement, some signal that sets them both into motion; Eren thinks that maybe he moved first, but it’s too close to be sure, and then he’s going in with his left arm braced and a firm right hook, channels all his frustration at the last few days, the last few years into his first swing.

Unsurprising. He’s always coped rather violently.

But he’s thrown off-balance, force misdirected when Levi’s hand presses against his elbow, fingers straight and tight together like the impression of a blade; forces his arm back, then there’s a jab at his solar plexus that he’s twisting to avoid before he can think about it, redirects his momentum hard to the right and the corporal’s hand skims along the outside of his left arm, his weight teeters on his submissive foot and he goes to step with his right –

the soldier’s foot hooks around his grounded ankle and _pulls,_ sweeps his footing out from under him at the same time a bare palm crashes against his shoulder, and then he’s on his back on the ground.

The sky looks hazy. His head spins from the hit it took, and he lets out a groan before he can help it, one hand twitching up to feel gently at the back of his head. It comes away sticky as the corporal’s head blots out most of the clouds above him, conspicuously disapproving

Eren tries to look at his fingers, but his wrist is seized before he can, pale strong fingers wrap around the bare skin, immaculate fingernails, and Levi frowns at the tacky dark red substance smeared on the digits.

He drops Eren’s hand, more tosses it back at him than releases his hold, speaking lowly, commandingly. “Don’t move,” he says, firmly, already stepping over the young man’s torso, not so much as deigning to look at him as he speaks. “I’ve a pair of shitty glasses to fetch.”

It’s a few moments before he can regain control of himself enough to straighten his eyes out. He sits up gingerly, takes standing slowly, makes sure to pause when he gets dizzy again; the corporal is long gone, he realizes as he looks around, standing all alone on the training field, covered in dirt with his sword laying on the ground next to his foot.

Someone’s staring at him, he realizes belatedly; Eren squints, tries to see the person who starts toward him purposefully. The individual looks around cautiously – confirming Levi’s absence, possibly – then breaks into a full run, crossing the field easily.

The stranger is female, a white hood cresting over the collar of her uniform jacket, blonde hair pulled back into a severe bun, as severe as the tilt of her lips. But she’s short, Eren realizes, shorter than him, possibly even shorter than the corporal – a soldier likewise.

She approaches close enough for a conversation. Eren tries to speak first, makes as if to express friendly confusion, but she beats him to the punch, crosses her arms, blue eyes narrowing accusatory.

“Why is Corporal Levi giving you private lessons?” she demands, though her tone is not angry, merely forceful.

“I –“ he begins, blinks, cuts himself off; of anything he could have expected, it’s not that question. Besides –

“He’s… not?” he tries saying, but it comes out as an inquiry instead, because that wasn’t what he had considered it to be; those weren’t lessons, _were they?_ He was just –

She’s staring at him even more intensely now; her fingers tighten, pull ridges of the fabric on her arms to herself as she looks him over with what might be contempt, and he’s self-conscious in that time, he’s got _inches_ on her but she carries herself with a posture that speaks of confidence in her own abilities, or a lack of faith in his.

She jerks her chin up at him, raises her fists and squares her stance. “One round,” she bites out, expectant.

He’s still woozy from his tumble earlier, but it’s not like he can back out – not like he wants to, either. With every movement she insults him, and he’s had enough of being insulted today, feels a hot rush through his body as he half-copies her stance.

And it’s him that moves first, he’s sure of this time, he’s swinging, and –

She’s yanking his arm back, there’s a hand on his face that pushes, and an impact against his calves and suddenly the ground isn’t there anymore.

It’s his back that hits the ground this time instead of the underside of his head, thankfully, his knees dangling near his eyes as his equilibrium reasserts itself. He’s scrambling to get himself upright, determined not to quit, thinks to himself that he hasn’t lost if he can just launch a counterattack.

But his opponent is shaking her head disdainfully and walking away. “Pitiful,” he thinks he hears, isn’t sure, but he’s still angry, because she’d downed him faster than even Levi could, it hurts his pride to realize, and he’s not going to let her get away with that tucked under her belt –

 _“Eren!”_ he hears a shout, and he pauses, turns around, at the vaguely familiar voice.

Hanji is running towards him, glasses affixed to her face securely; Levi is some ways behind her, looking for all the world as if he were out on a stroll – amidst some disgusting-smelling flowers, from the way his jaw tenses, his eyes just as narrow as usual.

He turns to look, to find the girl – but she has vanished amidst the crowd of brown jackets, emblems of unicorns emblazoned on the backs.

“Miss Zoe,” he’s saying then, dumbly, as she takes hold of his shoulders, closer than he’d expected; she clucks her tongue at him, takes hold of the flesh of his cheek between two fingers with a light pinch (what the hell?). And laughs.

“Hanji’s _fine,_ ” she says, brushing her fingers along the back of his head, up his neck; Eren freezes, her touch is gentle, feather-light enough that it nearly tickles, and he realizes belatedly that she’s checking over the damage left by the soldier – who is gathering his things some distance away.

She slinks around behind him to peer more closely at the gash, talking as she goes: “I don’t need titles, unlike Corporal T- _oh,_ ” she releases a breath as he jolts suddenly, the tips of her fingers pressing against the wound that blazes white-hot, nearly catches her in the gut with his recoiling elbow. She pulls her hand away, looks over her fingers; the tips are spotted with blood, but there isn’t as much as there had been. “Sparring with an invalid,” she says to herself lowly.

Eren takes that as a signal that she’s finished, that he can turn – but he’s stopped by Hanji’s hand on his shoulder again, her fingers mimicking griffon talons digging in, and _her nails are really sharp._

“Let’s just hope he didn’t knock your brains around too much.”

Levi’s standing in front of him, holding Eren’s sword belt, wearing his own, his jacket slung over one arm. “Yeager. How many fingers am I holding up?”

Eren blinks.

“Three.” His eyebrows furrow. “Sir.”

Levi’s eyes flick to where he presumes Hanji’s to be; she is standing behind him, likely grinning, from the way the corporal’s eye seems to twitch. “There you go, glasses. The shitty brat’s fine.” The man breaks eye contact to begin slipping on his jacket, expertly maneuvers the dusty sword sheath, holds it far enough away from himself that none of the dirt knocked off can land on his clothes, and switches it to his other hand as he laces his other arm through an empty sleeve. “Even a bit smarter.” He speaks without looking at either of them; rolls his shoulders to set the garment straight. “You’d call that ‘knocking sense,’ wouldn’t you.”

Eren isn’t even offended; he is more fascinated by the comfortable camaraderie shared between the two of them, the way the corporal seems relaxed while addressing his comrade. It shows a different side of him, yet one that isn’t all that different.

Levi’s turning slightly as Hanji jibes back something about the number of times he needs to “knock sense”, and his eyes are wandering, he’s not paying attention, looking instead in the other direction.

Eren follows his gaze.

Someone strides toward them from across the field, weaving in between several pairs locked in spars, expertly dodges someone wielding a spear; it’s at that point that the shorter man speaks, without looking at either Eren or Hanji. “Looks like Dawk’s done with his nice long shit,” he says. “We’ve overstayed our welcome.”

Hanji explains to him as they return his sword to the armory that the field really belongs to the Military Police, and that they – members of the Scouting Legion – had borrowed it basically without permission. “Commander Dawk and Levi have always been on bad terms,” she says knowingly, “but it’s been exacerbated lately, as the King tends to take Levi’s advice over his. So!” She wiggles her fingers. “Tension!”

“But if Corporal Levi’s the commander of the Scouting Legion,” Eren finds himself asking, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, the skin between them creasing, “then why does everyone call him _corporal?_ ”

Hanji blinks at him owlishly once, before understanding seems to hit her, with a noise of amusement that reminds him of a smug-looking cat.

“Eren, Levi’s not the commander. That’s Erwin Smith.”

 

 

The first time he meets another member of Levi’s squad is in the stables.

To his great relief, someone somewhere had managed to find Mina in the inn stable in which he’d left her, and took great care in ensuring that she and his belongings had made their way all the way to the Scouting Legion’s private stock. (It confounded him to think that all of this superior treatment had come about because he had snuck into the castle; of course, a lot of things had happened between that point and the point at which he now stood. Hell, if he thought about it, the chain of events could be traced all the way back to being caught pilfering at the market. In response to that realization came the wry thought, _all of this for a loaf of bread?_ )

The mare in question nuzzles at his face, sensing his distraction, nosing against the spot where he knew his skin was still reddened from the healing scrape; it was no longer sensitive to the touch, but he still pulls away with a laugh, as she snorts in his face.

“This one is your horse, then?”

Eren jerks around at the voice, the words that were too close not to be addressed to him.

A young woman of small stature leans over the edge of the stall, her stomach pressed against the rough wood, reddish-blonde hair falling into her face; she scoops it back with one gentle hand and smiles at him warmly.

He takes in the uniform jacket covering her arms and the upper half of her torso with surprise; they seem at odds with the way she looks at him, actually friendly instead of the instantly judgmental or slightly manic gazes he has grown used to in the last few hours. It’s a moment before he regains his sense of tact enough to realize she had asked a question, and to answer accordingly.

“Yeah,” he affirms, running a hand down the side of the dark-haired mare’s muzzle without looking. “This is Mina.”

“And you’re Eren, right?” she says easily back, amber eyes flicking from the young man to his horse and back again.

Then she’s swinging her legs over the stall’s wall, stepping with boot-covered feet onto the hay that lines the floor. “I’m Petra,” she introduces herself, holds out a hand for him to grip and shake. “Petra Ral. Special Operations Squad.”

“Eren Yeager,” he says to answer, though the thought crosses his mind that – “But you probably knew that already.”

Her grip is firm and her laugh genuine, starts off as a hum in her chest and bubbles out through her lips. She doesn’t counter the statement. “Still,” she responds, holding her hand out, palm-flat to Mina once the handshake has ended, letting the horse snuffle at her skin gently, “it’s nice to hear it from the source.”

He isn’t sure what to say to that, so he asks the question that has gnawed at him for a few seconds instead. “Special Operations Squad?” The title’s not familiar to him – but from this angle he can see now that she has the characteristic pair of wings emblazoned on the left arm and back of her jacket; undoubtedly part of the Scouting Legion.

“Oh,” she’s scratching the horse’s muzzle gently, “I suppose most refer to us as Squad Levi. There’s three more of us, besides me, and – you’ve met the corporal already, haven’t you?”

There’s a brush sitting on one of the stall’s short walls nearby, and Eren has nothing to do with his hands but an itching to stay in motion, so he picks it up and runs it along Mina’s shoulders and flank, begins making fluid strokes. At the question, he can’t help the look that first appears on his face; it’s almost a grimace, something in the tilt of his mouth and his eyebrows that sets Petra to giggling again, as she joins him in his actions without really asking, but gaining permission with a tentative glance before using another spare brush to comb out her other side.

“You look upset,” she says, throws him a conspiratorial glance over the horse’s shoulders. “It’s not rare, you know. Most people get like that after talking to him, especially for the first time.” She hums. “Did you know? He’s actually considered to be ‘humanity’s strongest soldier’. Everyone calls him that.”

Eren blinks, looks up, loses track of what spot he’d been working on as he nearly drops the brush. The statement catches him by surprise. “Really?”

Petra meets stunned teal with sparkling brown. “Mm-hm. It’s said even the monsters are afraid of him. I heard a tale once that he scared off a _dragon_ just by glaring at it.”

“People can’t really believe that,” Eren says lowly, his eyebrows drawing close together. The mere mention of monsters, those creatures, puts him on edge, draws a cloud over his good mood.

“Some do!” she declares, but her expression pulls into a pensive almost-frown. “Of course, it isn’t true. But it gives people confidence when he’s around. They have someone to believe in, even if he is…” her brush stills, and she looks up at him over Mina’s back again with a smile, “short, as well as unexpectedly tense, rude, and unapproachable.”

Eren stifles a smile at that. _He certainly is all of those things._ But there had been something else that surprised him, nagged at him from the moment he’d noticed it.

“I guess I didn’t expect him to be the kind to,” he takes a step over, brings his brush with and moves further down Mina’s flank (the horse in question giving a soft snort), thinks back to the throne room, “obey his superiors’ orders without complaint.”

“You didn’t expect him to submit to the chain of command?” she asks to clarify.

Eren nods; realizes how ambiguous that movement is, and rephrases with words. “He doesn’t seem like one to take orders.”

“I heard he used to be a lot like that.” Petra moves over too, whispers a few pacifying words to the horse as she begins to shift, two people standing in her blind spot; Eren’s hand goes to scratching at the middle of her back to calm her. “It’s said that before joining the Scouting Legion, he was a famous criminal in the underground circles right here in the Capital.”

“A _criminal?_ ”

Petra nods. “And it’s said that the reason he even joined the Legion was as a favor to Commander Erwin.”

“The commander,” Eren parrots again, though his tone is almost dubious instead of incredulous. He pauses for a moment, tries to remember the Commander’s face from the brief few glimpses he’d gotten of the man the other day; Hanji had said that he had wanted to speak with Eren, but that his schedule had gotten in the way – and there was no time to wait around if they had wanted to leave by nightfall, the schedule that the corporal had been pushing.

“Yeager.”

He jumps and spins.

On the other side of the low rail stands the man himself, his face set in his characteristic frown as he eyes the young man and his horse.

Petra’s moving, then, snaps immediately into a salute regarding the corporal; her right hand curled in front of her chest, fist pressed against her heart, with her left arm and hand falling at the small of her back behind. Levi nods and turns to her first. “He needs a better horse.”

“Yes, sir!” The woman slips out of the stall, steps over one of the low walls and makes her way down the middle hallway cleaving the stables into two rows, evidently finding a horse well-rested enough to accommodate Eren.

“But, sir –“ he begins, unsure if he should have copied her form, her salute, compromises by standing straight and tall when regarding his soldier, intent on defending his horse, because she’s good, she’s faithful, and –

“She’s not a Scouting Legion horse,” the corporal snaps. Nearly snaps, rather; he seems to hold his irritation behind his teeth, if he’s irritated at all. Which he probably is, judging by the pronounced wrinkle between his brows, Eren thinks, stifles the urge to quail. “Ours are bred for speed and distance. We’re not taking breaks every few hours to allow your personal fucking preference, brat.”

Eren hesitates for a hairs’ breadth of a moment. “Yes, sir,” he says, then, bites back whatever retort might have threatened to rise up his throat like angry bile. He’s not going to go that route. He’s smarter than that.

He’s not used to picking his battles, but he’s going to have to begin to learn.

“Get your things,” Levi says, turns as if to walk away; tilts his head back and to the left to regard Eren with one gray eye.

“And don’t step in horse shit. We leave in twenty.”


	4. Bloodmouth, Part the Third

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren's introduction into the Scouting Legion has a few bumps along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, this chapter is okay to post! Wow, I have been busy the last few days; it's been hard to crank this one out. But it's here!  
> Fun fact: I'm not updating before work. In fact, it's the middle of the night here, but it's done and ready to go so what the hey.  
> THE RATING JUMPS. SORRY. Actually I'm really not, but. Don't worry. You'll enjoy it. Maybe.  
> Stuff happens. That's all I really have to say!
> 
> Enjoy!

The sun is setting when Levi gives the order, pulls his horse up short with one hand twisted in the reins and the other gesturing to a copse of trees that stands somewhat apart from the forest that now lays behind them, the canopy of high leaves thinning to reveal the orange sky beyond.

It surprises Eren that they're stopping to camp for the night anywhere besides in the middle of a grassy field (there are many of those; in Sina District everything is still a lush emerald hue, a color that has faded from Eren's memories of Shinganshina. Even Trost looks dismal, in his memory, looks like the life is being leeched out of it - remembers a tall proud tree in the yard near Hannes' forge that produced not even one green bud last spring, signs that the corruption and the monsters are making their foray into Rose with each new night that passes), as it seems to him a field allows for better night watch, leaves nocturnal creatures visible and vulnerable.

But then Levi turns on his horse and looks at him directly, raises an eyebrow - Eren can't put words to the impression he receives from the action but he thinks it might be something like _"your idea, any problem is your fault"_ and he wonders at that for a moment, wonders if he'd taken into account Eren's mumblings about trees being better to use maneuver gear though he'd given no indication that he'd heard, wonders at how the corporal seems so flat, so expressionless, but communicates in nuances as small and articulate as -

"Goddammit, brat, _watch where you're steering your horse!"_ someone yells from his immediate right, carries over the thunder of hoofbeats, jars Eren back into the present with a jolt and a flick of the eyes. It's Auruo on his flank, he realizes should have remembered as he nods apologizes stifles a venomous thought.

"Sorry, sir!" He doesn't like the taste of the title that leaves his mouth, thinks it doesn't belong to this clown because he hasn't earned it, because Eren doesn't just _submit_ , his respect is hard-won and maybe that makes him just as much of a little shit as everyone else seems to think he is, but that's the way it's always been.

But he ends up glancing to his left as they slow their horses, the pleasant steady rhythm turning staccato as they regain their footing, translate into a slow walk, and Petra's on the other side, meets his eyes, shares with him a secret smile, reflecting the fire of the sky in kind brown eyes.

"Petra."

The squad's eyes snap to the back of the corporal's head as he gives his orders, dismounts in one motion, so fluidly that Eren stares, glances back and forth from the man to his saddle and back. The sheer grace in Levi's movements catches him off guard more often than not -

"Tend to the horses." He is still speaking, turns and strides towards the soldiers under his command, still mounted; he looks at none of them. "Erd. Gunther. Fire and food. Auruo, set up camp."

The corporal stands beside Eren's horse now, on his right, in the six feet or so that separates him from the vaguely curly-haired older man.

"Yeager. With me." His soldier jerks his head towards the nearby trees. "I want to get a start on this weirdass machine of yours before nightfall."

There's a chorus of "Sir!"s and a singular "I'm not putting up _his_ tent!" that follow the pair as they walk into the trees, Levi's purposeful stride easily outstripping Eren's careful picking-around so as not to trip on a root; the young man hitches the pack containing the maneuver gear higher onto his shoulder as he stumbles after the corporal's retreating back.

 

 

  
It's not easy going, but it isn't more than five minutes before the man finds a clearing - more a slightly widened gap between trees than anything - that satisfies him. Levi stops suddenly, and Eren almost walks headlong into his back, jerks back with an inarticulate word, looks around himself.

The trunks here are wide enough around that he would have to be fifteen meters tall to wrap his arms around one; it’s ideal for the maneuver gear, as the anchors carry the entire weight of one’s body, and there are a few trees like this just outside of Trost where he and Hannes had tested it, but it still astounds him to crane his neck back, let greenish eyes wander up the rough bark-skin of the trees, squint at the leaf canopy high above that filters orange through verdant foliage.

The air is heavy; expectant, and it almost feels strange, heady as it settles in Eren’s lungs, passes in and out with each breath. Surprise hits him when he notes, once looking back down, that Levi has been staring at him as he takes in the location. “This’ll work,” Eren breathes in response, wants to speak louder but something, the ambient quiet, holds it back, mutes voices and blankets senses.

The corporal does not respond right away, if he had even meant to; there’s something lingering in gray eyes and Eren stares back searchingly, but an answer is impossible to divulge in the murk that is the man before him.

A loud croak from high up in the trees breaks the moment, a raven taking wing suddenly with a flutter and a rustle. The shattered silence tinkles to the ground like falling glass, painful to look at, painful to touch, forces something between them and the impression worms under Eren’s skin before he can really consider where it came from. Suddenly it feels as if he’s lost something.

“Yeager,” Levi says suddenly, not loudly but not softly either; draws Eren’s gaze to himself with a single raised eyebrow that drips impatience, inclines his head towards the bag, urging him to get to the point, to begin.

Eren thinks he might understand what people mean by “wishful thinking” when he drops the pack at his own feet, squats to undo the buckle that holds it closed. The fabric is scratchy against his fingers as he sticks his hands inside; when fingers brush against metal, he lifts the offending part out of the bag and sets it on the ground beside him, padded by moss and fallen, browning pine needles, until he is surrounded by pieces of machines.

He holds two harnesses, one in each hand as he rises to a stand again; shifts a bit, his legs having gone numb and reawakening in painful bursts. He doesn’t look at Levi as he explains, hesitant to watch the man’s expression. It’s a role reversal, if it could be considered one, for Eren to be teaching something to his soldier, but he doesn’t dwell on it, affixes his green-blue-teal eyes to the tangle of belts and buckles. “Harness,” he begins simply. “The way the straps are arranged make it easier to control where you’re going when you’re in the air. It’s like – trying to balance on a fence?” His eyebrows come together. “No, it’s more like… dancing, I guess…”

It’s then that he chances to glance over at the corporal – the man has not stirred beyond folding his arms, and he’s surprised and relieved to realize his eye is twitching from impatience and not contempt. But it’s _really hard_ to explain how it works, mostly because it’s not like he entirely gets it himself. He isn’t the brains behind Hannes’ invention.

Eren wonders for a moment who was, then. The thought is fleeting, like a sparrow, as the shorter man before him says something to break the falling silence, jars him from his irrelevant thoughts.

“I’m not getting any younger here, Yeager,” Levi nearly growls, looks like smoke should be streaming from his nose like it would from an angry dragon’s muzzle, and he probably would chuckle at the thought if not for hawkish gray eyes alternating between glancing up at the sky (which steadily makes a turn to dusky purple) and glaring at him.

Eren sighs, pushes his misgivings about appearing even more of an idiot than he already has away; a quiet “alright, alright,” is mumbled under his breath, and then he tosses one of the harnesses to Levi without preamble. The clank and rattle of the metal buckles is evidence enough that the man caught it before the mess of straps tumbled to the ground.

It’s useless to even try to describe how it’s supposed to look, so Eren resigns himself to pulling off his boots, balances on one foot as he drops each of them, twin thumps. “Just – watch.” Tacks on belatedly, “Please.” And another beat. “Sir.”

But then he’s conscious of the soldier’s eyes on him as he stumbles into the belts, laces one foot in and then the other, checking that the straps rest just behind the balls of his feet, ignoring the sharp twigs that poke into his flesh. Up crossed over his thighs, settles the two small metal fasteners on the outsides of them; there’re two larger fasteners placed at the small of his back, and he’s threading his arms through the padded upper section, clasping the buckle that sits below his collarbone and rolls his shoulders to set the torso belts in place.

It takes him just under a minute.

It takes Levi two.

And that’s counting the time it takes for him to clasp a strap between his teeth and pull it tight; the harness is large on him, but the buckles take in the slack as if it had never been there. He’d thrown his jacket at Eren, instructed him to hold onto it as he slid the belts onto his frame, and he hands it back when beckoned, can’t help the stare and the look on his face.

“Keep your eyes to yourself, brat,” Levi rasps without really looking at him, speaking almost automatically as he tugs at the strap wrapped around his hips one last time, jacket draped over his arm.

Eren decides not to make a bigger embarrassment of himself by trying to argue the accusation; instead he mutters an affirming “sir” before stooping to pick up the first pieces of the machine itself. Explains their purpose as he equips his own to demonstrate.

First the motor is attached to his lower back, which contains the fans. Then comes the twin cylinders of gas; these Eren straps directly to his thighs using the fasteners on his legs and the two belts adhering to each cylinder, the tube and nozzle facing upward. He refrains from connecting the tubes to the motor until he has buckled on the belt-mounted gear proper, ensuring that the anchors are correctly positioned (one on either side of his hips) and that the handles are tucked into the holsters at his ribs.

He shows one to Levi, points out how the lever on the outside runs gas, and the two buttons on the inner portion launch and retract anchors. (A tree across the clearing bleeds out the gashes in its bark, anchors landing in the five-foot radius, one after the other.) It's when Eren explains that they're to be attached to the handles of his swords that Levi interrupts, says the first thing he has in several long minutes.

"You fight with one sword," he points out suddenly, causes Eren to forget the words in his throat, his mouth gaping open. The unspoken question, phrased in Levi fashion, leaves him without an answer for several beats of his heart.

"... Yeah," he finally allows, dips his head forward. "I've never really needed to _fight_ with it before. It never occurred to me, I guess."

Levi looks at him out of the corner of his eye, frowns an actual frown, more than the shadow of a tilt of his lips. "Bullshit," he says simply.

There's no press for an explanation, but Eren still feels as if he ought to provide one - whether it be _good enough_ notwithstanding, because it might be a stupid reason but it's his reason and Levi can go fuck himself if he thinks otherwise. (It's childish, but he holds them close to heart, as if dumb fairytales are tangible evidence of Mikasa and Armin and his childhood. He doesn't want to loosen his fingers on those memories, because then what will he have left?)

So the words he offers in half-assed enlightenment are not defensive. They're more tired than anything.

"Heroes in stories fight with one sword."

The silence that follows eats away at the young man before he musters the courage to look at his soldier. The sight that meets him elicits a surprised blink.

He looks actually stupefied, the normally stoic face twisted in such a way that Eren wonders if he smells, or something. He's looking at Eren in disbelief, continues even after the boy gets self-conscious enough to start to flush.

"... Are you _fucking_ shitting me, Yeager," he's finally able to say. Eren can taste the disappointment, and there's a low twinge in his stomach to accompany it.

There's a fist tangling in the front of his shirt, he notices a bare moment before he's being yanked down, finds himself staring into Levi's storm-colored eyes, rainy with the words boiling under his tongue.

"Listen real fucking close, Yeager," he all but snarls, hot breath washing over Eren's face. His fingers tighten.

Eren listens. His heart's in his mouth anyway; he might as well.

"My squad and I are prepared to die for you at a moment's notice." He spits out every word. "Why do you think that is? Give it a thought."

He doesn't give Eren a chance to respond. "Your father fucked up by making an enemy of the King. Now it's time to clean up after him. I don't like nasty messes."

The soldier's eyebrows descend even further, the lines between them and his eyelids thick as brushstrokes. "The King thinks having you along will save us a lot of work. But don't forget - for once in your miserable fucking life, brat, _it isn't about you_. You're not the hero. There is no hero."

It's hard to breathe around the lump in his throat.

"And I'm not going to risk my men's lives any more than they already are for you to play at being in some fucking fairytale." Levi pauses. "Fucking _look_ at me, you cowardly piece of shit."

His eyes had wandered, staring past Levi rather than at him; it's more out of a vain hope to salvage his meager pride than disinterest or boredom. Yeah, he's listening. He's fucking listening.

He doesn't want to, but he is. Because his soldier is harsh reality wrapped up in one five-foot-three figure, and he's been long overdue for a reality check.

"Tell me," Levi demands once Eren's eyes are on his again, greenish-turquoise on steel, "why the fuck are you here?"

"What?" The word drops from his mouth before he can help it; the question catches him off-guard, because surely he knows? The man has to have some idea. He'd been there when -

"What are you trying to do," he restates, pulling hard on the fabric, catches one finger in the dark string that laces over his collarbone.

"I'm," Eren starts, and his voice hitches once he becomes aware of their sheer proximity; it's a miracle of nature that his blood doesn't rise red under his cheeks, he thinks idly as he speaks. "I want to rescue my friends."

 _"Fucking bullshit,"_ Levi growls, looks him hard in the eyes, and the fierceness in his voice gives Eren pause. "The fuck do they need to be rescued from? Food, shelter - ain't that paradise for a hopeless street rat?"

"They're trapped!" Eren bites these words out hotly, as anger rises like a swelling tide, because he doesn't _understand_ \- "Neither of them wanted that! To live like cattle, happy to live and die without knowing what's out there!"

Levi's eyes seem to flash at that, glimmer in the half-light of dusk. "That what you want?" he asks, stands up straighter, eyes boring holes into Eren's own and breath warming the mere inch that separates them. "To go outside? Do you have the balls?"

"It's only dangerous because inkbloods exist," Eren snarls. "If they didn't, there'd be no monsters." Then he swallows hard, takes a breath. "That's why.

"I'm going to wipe every single one of them off the face of this world."

Levi is silent for a long time. Rather, it feels like a long time, as Eren's heart is pounding double-time in the cage of his ribs, and he finds himself breathing a little heavily; he's ceased to be aware of the minuscule amount of air separating their faces, and it's only when words rasp past Levi's lips that he comes back to himself, comes back to the wooded clearing at sunset.

"Big words for a shitty brat that can't even fight." It's those words that seem to peel away the layer of tension between them, stretched taut like a thin membrane.

He's standing on his toes, pulling Eren closer with the next beat of his heart. The young man's breath stills in his chest, hitches, the rabbit-heart pulse tripping like a dizzy fawn.

"I'm going to tell you a secret," Levi whispers, hot breath and hummingbird wings against his ear. "Inkbloods bleed just as red as the rest of us."

He stumbles back as the corporal pushes him suddenly away, releases his grip on his shirt with a sound that couldn't quite be called a sigh. "We're done for today," he states, turns on one heel and steps delicately over a root, doesn't look back.

Doesn't see the way Eren's fingers rise to trace the shell of his ear, tender and slow like he's preserving the sensation as delicate as butterfly flutters, memorizing the texture of Levi's breath on his skin.

 

 

He fumbles his way through dinner with a chunk of what is probably deer in his mouth. Several members of Squad Levi try their best to talk to him, but there's a haze that hovers over Eren, crowds his thoughts and leaves him disoriented.

He is excused from that night's watch draw. Levi declares this without looking at him or even properly acknowledging his presence.

And he meets Petra's eyes as he stands up, stares at the fire for a few moments longer, then turns toward his tent; the worried look in her amber eyes haunts him in that night's dreams, where he confuses them for his mother's, dreams of smoky shapes in flames and his mother's body asleep in blood and winter eyes, the shape of a mouth and the curve of a neck, jacket-framed shoulders and breath against his ear.

 

 

When he awakes, covered in sweat in the silent hour before dawn, he is more tired than when he'd fallen asleep.

 

 

He doesn't know what Levi had intended by that statement, the whispered phrase that lingers like an inkstain across his thoughts, but Eren decides that day that it changes nothing.

Had he been implying that those pathetic excuses for human beings were anything less than monsters themselves? It seems unlike the corporal to show sympathy in a fashion like that; Eren entertains this idea as he stares at the back of the soldier's head, three horse-lengths in front of him.

He remembers the slurs that had dropped from the man's mouth vividly, and the phantom sounds of them dispel his doubts. Most of them, anyway.

But those thoughts are pushed aside when they stop for a quick lunch. (Auruo has a strange propensity for biting his tongue whenever he rides and uses his mouth; Levi allows the wasted time in lieu of the man bleeding all over the place.)

It's bread and cheese and leftover venison, salted (well) by Erd the night before; it vanishes rather quickly, and Gunther dodges a pointed look from Petra as to where the remainder of the block of cheese had disappeared to when she left it to retrieve two canteens from her saddlebags.

There's an easy laugh shared by the group of them, and everyone's smiles seem to lift a weight off Eren's shoulders that he hadn't noticed was there. But there's still a flicker of a mix of expectancy and irritation that nags at him; he can almost smell it lingering in the air under the scent of horse and grass and the wildflowers interspersed.

(He had asked why they had taken a large circle around a town that had cropped up on the horizon, and Petra had been the first to explain; denizens of Sina District liked to forget that not all was right in the world, and the Scouting Legion's presence was a grim reminder of the reality of Maria and Rose Districts. If they wanted to avoid stirring discontent, they avoided people until they crossed into Rose - hence their brief stop in the middle of a field.)

He's standing with one hand resting on the flank of his grazing horse, looking towards the horizon, the cloudless blue expanse that gets darker the closer it reaches to the hazy outline of faraway hills, watching a hawk wheel lazily on the breeze, when something hits the ground by his feet, bends the grass and glitters in the bright sunlight.

It’s a sword, its blade reflecting rays into his eyes.

Eren squints for a moment before he glances up to the side; the corporal stands a few feet away, both his swords in hand and his jacket missing, inclines his head towards the one nestled by the young man’s feet, indicating he ought to pick it up. His visage is unreadable, but the familiar wrinkle between his eyebrows is present, even as his eyes drop to run along the lengths of his blades, observing for damage or inconsistencies.

He realizes he’s staring a moment later, bends to wrap his fingers around the handle. The sword is a hair lighter than the one strapped to his waist, and he readjusts his grip on it, looks up at Levi in confusion.

The man in question raises an eyebrow. “Draw the other one,” he says, lets his swords down a bit gently, relaxing his stance somewhat.

“You’re going to learn to use both.”

 

 

Eren thinks he’s been getting way too acquainted with the ground lately, but the fresh green grass and smattered white flowers smell nice, like condensed late summer. His trousers are probably stained green, especially on the knees.

He sits up to check.

They definitely are. It would be embarrassing if he really cared about something like that, but if he ever did, he really doesn’t right now. The blood in his veins is still pumping hot, he’s breathing heavy from exertion, looking up at the soldier blotting out the sky above.

Levi strolls over.

Really, actually strolls, his steps gentle and measured, raises one sword to edge close – press gently against the tender flesh just below the side of Eren’s jaw.

It’s happened enough times that Eren barely reacts anymore, besides the way the fight goes out of him at the conclusion of the round. His shoulders slump, his head tilts away from the sword just slightly so that the sharp edge doesn’t sit flush to his skin, looks up at Levi with dull green eyes and an expression that’s only cursory defiance.

“You,” Levi says, pulls the side of his sword away with a flick, “are one lazy fucking brat.”

Blue sky, green grass, the emerald of the cloaks thrown around the rest of the squad’s soldiers as they huddle together in conversation some ways away, the varying browns and blacks of their horses – there’s vivid color all around him, but it’s the stormy gray in the corporal’s eyes that he notices most.  
  
Even so, he declines to really move, do much at all besides drawing his fingers into fists, crumpling grass between them as he looks away. He doesn’t want to deal with the judgment in Levi’s face right now. He’s tired.

 _Tired_. Of all this. Because he’s struggling against nothing; he’d managed to delude himself for seven years that the only thing he needed to do was get Armin and Mikasa back and then he’d have a _life_ again. Seven years, and it only really hits him now that _life_ had happened for _them_ ; they hadn’t waited around, not really. They took their lot and worked with it.

So what is he doing? What is he supposed to do now?

It’s the thought that has been nagging at him for the last few days, but now it really stares him in the eyes wearing the face of a five-foot-three reality check, frowning in what might be disappointment.

He doesn’t want to be a disappointment to this man.

 _Like hell I’m going to give in now,_ he thinks, pushes himself to his feet and brings his swords with him. (The left is still light and unfamiliar in his hand, but the way Levi has been concentrating his offensive attention on his weak side is forcing him to quickly adjust; it’s only as he learns to handle both that he realizes there’s always been a natural hole in his left flank that the second sword now fills, as if he’s been fighting with a crippled two-handed style the entire time.)

He brings them to bear, and the corporal’s gaze seems to sharpen when Eren’s shoulders square and his own look becomes a focused glare.

Thirteen seconds later, there’s a sword to his throat again. But at least he’s not on the ground this time, he thinks, as Levi pulls it away without bothering to throw some scathing words at him, turns to Petra who has been waiting patiently, if awkwardly, nearby, shifting her weight from foot to foot as if concerned about interrupting but _corporal, shouldn’t we get going again? otherwise we’ll be spending the night here, and we haven’t covered a lot of ground…_

Eren feels her nervousness as if he is trying on her shoes, but the fit isn’t right and it squeezes his toes and chafes his ankles, and he shakes his head to push the feeling away.

 

 

They stop for the night.

There are no trees around, so no words about the maneuver gear are exchanged. Instead, there’s a companionable silence between the members of Squad Levi as they dine on meat, cheese, and bread, as is quickly becoming typical.

It's a somewhat surreptitious glance up, with the unwanted heel of a loaf of bread torn apart between his fingers, that has him accidentally watching the way Levi consumes his food; he's standing outside the loose circle they've gathered in around the tiny budding fire, the sun to his right, holding a chipped teacup in spidery fingers that press their tips under the curled lip, a rind of bread hovering just against his mouth as he chews almost thoughtfully, eyebrows flat and forehead handsome-smooth.  
  
The corporal spots him with a stray flick of dark clouds, and the wrinkle above his nose returns to haunt Eren's eyes; he wishes suddenly that it were the other way around, as if he could rub away those lines with the touch of a thumb -

only then does he look away, embarrassed less for having been caught staring at Levi and more for the questionable direction his thoughts had taken.

 

 

More bruises blaze to life upon his ribs, hissing and spitting when the rough fabric of his shirt rubs over them. The ache from his introductory bout with his soldier's special brand of pain had only just begun to leave his bones, but the remnants of those stains are rekindled by the new marks that flower across his skin.

He wears the blemishes as badges of pride. They're a mark of his continued growth; he had surrendered his fight against learning the left hand when Levi had finally, viciously, snapped at him for being an idiot and promised him that, if his idiocy caused anyone harm, he would kill him himself. (The degree to which Eren managed to focus thereafter stood as testament to how much a legitimately angry Corporal Levi scared him; he imagines purposely defying the man to be tantamount to sticking your head in a lion's open mouth with a raw steak tied to your face. The metaphor makes it easier for him to accept his own submission - in that kind of a bind, who wouldn't swallow their pride?)

He thinks, at a time like this, he'd appreciate Armin's company. Even Mikasa's. Because, at a time like this, despite his... _respect_ (he fights the urge to clear his throat, though it's just a _thought_ , seriously) for the corporal -

He sure makes for a shitty watch partner.

Because the man is standing some feet away, still with the teacup, sipping gently at what must be cold Earl Grey by now, pointedly not going to anything remotely resembling any sort of length to create a conversation that might lessen the drag of three hours.

Eren knows Levi doesn't trust him even as far as he can throw him; he has said as much, in exactly that wording, made it clear that he was not to be assigned to a watch by himself lest they "die while taking a midnight shit". But it's not like there are any monsters wandering around Sina District for him to miss while on watch, anyway.

He considers his somewhat childish irritation at his implied stupidity as he irritably polishes the blade and pommel of the heavier of his swords, seated firmly with one of his saddlebags as a perch, the sword laying across his thighs and resting gently against the metal tanks strapped to them. The rag ghosts over the weapon with a soothing rhythm, his fingers pressing down against the blunt of the blade. It's unneeded maintenance, but he's picked up a bit of a tic, polishing in order to keep his hands busy. (As a boy, he'd bitten his nails to the quick too many times to count; he'd kicked the habit last year for good, he hoped, but it had left a gap to be filled. And for a long time, he had contemplated getting ahold of some tobacco rolls - he had connections, he knew Nac Tius, the roller's son, but he never pursued the idea.)

When he looks up, it's as if he captures the world in freeze-frame.

Or, that's how it feels to him, as he plays the memory in hindsight, savoring the vivid fragment of a moment under his tongue.

There's still the taste of cheese lingering in his mouth; he considers it more of a delicacy than it really is, a longtime mark of having once starved. The night has long fallen, shot through by the dim glow of the fire's embers behind them, and the small makeshift torch speared into the ground near Eren's foot; the lively sound of cicadas hidden in the grasses that stretch in every direction break the heavy silence separating him from the soldier, who scans the rich blue horizon with steely eyes peeking out from over the rim of his cup.

He thinks that maybe Levi moves first, the heavy curse biting its way out, but that is when the memory gets jumbled,

because then the monster is there.

Carrion-breath, a flash of wings, the sound of something shattering underneath the unholy screeching the _thing_ unleashes - he maybe registers these before something collides into his side, _hard_ , all points and edges aggravating his bruises and he makes a pained noise as he falls off his bag and hits the ground.

**_SCREEEEECH_ **

the sound leaves the creature's beak - it's a griffon, Eren realizes in the parts of it he can see in this position, and the flames of the torch have caught its right wing, crackle and begin to reek of burning plumage while the guts of his bag hang from its claws -

 _"Stay the fuck down,"_ Levi is rasping in his ear, is standing, had tackled him out of harm's way while he had been staring in shock at the claws hurtling towards his face.

He's got his swords unsheathed, but no gear attached to his harness; still, he cuts an imposing image with his blades at the ready, glaring angrily up at the creature the size of two horses that struggles to right itself in the unsteady air, fabric drooping from its talons; Levi's shoulders and the griffon's wings are equally bleached bone-white in the light of the moon, the only light there is to see by.

 _"Corporal!"_ comes a sudden yell, and Eren sees the hesitation, the tense of his shoulders in enough time for him to suck in a breath; that brief moment is telling, because they're good, he's _good_ , but they've grown _comfortable_ and that will cost -

His fingers find the trigger before he thinks.

There's a click and a whoosh as the anchor fires. The wire flies.  
  
And the griffon screams as the gear attached to Eren's waist tethers to its shoulder, the metal anchor digging deep into flesh and muscle.

It's retracting and the gear pulls him airborne to the tune of a frantic _"YEAGER!"_ but everything blurs, he acts on instinct - fires the left canister to swing himself up when its wings beat down, he reaches its left as the appendage rises into the air for another concussive flap -

stiffens his arms as the blades meet joint and feather and bone, cleaves the wing off with a harsh swing -

its body jerks and he feels it in the cable, but his momentum pulls him on, he glides over its back and retracts the anchor and trims the other giant wing in the same motion, fires right anchor, both canisters -

he smells and tastes the rank blood, they're _falling_ , but he sees the tender nape of its neck, covered in a blend of red-stained feathers and fur, drops his right sword down hard against it as he swings past, and he feels the muscle severing, the thing shrieks and convulses -

it's dead when the body hits the ground, and Eren reaches it not a second later, pulls the brake on the wire retract to slow his descent but not quick enough, and he comes in too fast, soaring over the wingless body and hitting the ground just beyond with a thump and a short roll.

 

  
There's silence.

 

  
It falls immediate as a thick blanket; echoes definite in the absence of cicadas and the held breath of the people in the encampment.

Petra is white-faced with a hand held loosely to her mouth, the crossbow in her other drooping gently towards the ground; Erd and Gunther have one foot in each of their tents, weapons in hand and postures tense as if they had paused mid-motion.

Auruo bursts from his tent sputtering curses and nocking an arrow, but no one moves, no one turns to him - because Eren starts coughing at the same time, scrabbles loosely at his ribs and then at the grass with shaky fingers, separating up from down and holding in his dinner inside bruised-apple skin.

Tries to stand, but then he looks up, chin tilts into the air as he leans back. The corporal is blotting out the dark night sky above him, stands over him with tight lips as he has so many times in the last few days, his new life, but this time there's real blood on Eren's clothes and skin (he feels it tacky and drying on his hands and wrists, the handles of his maneuver gear slick with it where they are fastened to his swords and sharp against his fingers) and it is both real and surreal, he thinks he might be dreaming when his harsh breathing stutters.

There's a hand being held out to him. Firm long fingers and pale skin, scrubbed clean to glowing in moonlight.

(Armin's fairytales always called fair skin beautiful.)

The light flush on his cheekbones brightens to fiery red when Levi's lips part, form words he never thought, dreamed, to hear from such a person.  
  
"Good work, Yeager."

 

 

Eren comes to the grim realization that the only clothes he's got left are the ones on his back.

The rest lay in a mangled heap somewhere near the dissolving bones behind them, _far_ behind them; since the dawn after the griffon's attack, they have ridden south without stopping even to eat. The terse air that has fallen around the heads of Squad Levi has its roots in hunger, and uncertainty - and perhaps for Auruo, venomous words that he can't spit at Eren without spitting blood rotting behind his teeth.

It's all well and good for the young man, who isn't really keen on the conversations the soldiers have begun to draw him into. The respect is great, and he likes hearing the stories of the field and trading grievances over monsters... but he has laughed awkwardly at enough jokes he only half-understands enough times before noon to last him till he's fifty.

And he's turned to Levi in the midst of these unusually-but-comfortably friendly conversations, wishing hoping for a change in his expression, however minute, but he has been met with the static stern face of the corporal enough disappointing times that he eventually finds it within himself to stop looking for a difference.

(He doesn't stop looking.)

Sunset tosses her red hair over bare shoulders when they ride into Hermiha, the southern gateway into Rose District. Her locks hang like a staining curtain over green cloaks and the dust-brown of the one spread across Eren's back, dyes the faces of townspeople either pressing toward them with wonder or hanging back with disapproval, peeking out of kitchen windows and around corners.

Eren is at the center of the formation. To one side he watches Petra's wrist rise and flick as she greets the crush and the civilians; behind him Erd and Gunther laugh and nod. Even Auruo, pretending to scoff, holds a hand out to a reaching boy.

What should he do?

His answer comes in the form of an automatic response. Green eyes drift across the throng, unfocused and lazy, before they come to rest on two pinched faces. A boy and a girl perch together on a box at the back of the crowd, laden with sticks; when the boy spots Eren's gaze, he lights up from the inside out, grinning and waving and jerking his companion's hand to wave with him.

He smiles back almost sheepishly, flushes and ducks his head before he can look too long. It's embarrassing - he's not a member of the Scouting Legion, and this welcome is not for him.  
Petra seems to notice his movement, glances over in question; only laughs lightly at the subject of his discomfort.

"Eren, soldier or not, you saved this town from that griffon last night! And as far as I'm concerned, that makes you an honorary squad member in _my_ eyes." She smiles. "Go on! You earned it!"

But even so, when he turns and his eyes fall upon the back of Levi's head, tangle in the locks of his hair, he just _knows_ from the way the man's sitting that he is just as flat as ever, lips a tight line if not frowning outright. Despite being the biggest hero, he accepts the welcome without response.

Something in Eren's chest grows tight, and he pushes it away as they stable the horses, rent rooms in an inn for the night. It's the shadow of a thought he doesn't want to contemplate, doesn't want to consider.

Because he's not that fucked up.

It stays buried when Levi comes to find him after dinner with a stack of folded clothes. Because he's "training to be one anyway", so he may as well "dress the damn part rather than parade around in gross rags" till he "drops dead of some nasty disease".

They're the Corporal's words, which sound sweet in his ears the way he has begun to learn to translate them, his forefinger tracing the wings emblazoned onto the jacket. All he's hearing are "you're one of us now, and you're even more of a spoiled brat because of it", over and over, laying in his room with his cheek pressed against his pillow as the dark green cloak twists in his fingers and warms with his breathing.

He's attached more meaning than he can put into words to the Scouting Legion, to Levi's squad, to their wings - he's come to associate them with a reason to keep existing.

And now those wings are his.

Eren falls asleep to the tune of the word _freedom_.

 

 

He jerks awake fumbling, breath hot and short in his chest and his face, his neck ablaze. He tastes smoke on his lips as real as if he had closed his mouth round a candle; nostrils flare, chest heaves as he pants, heart racing towards a finish line he will never reach.

The moonlight streaming in through the window sets the sheet tangled around his ankles aglow. He lets the tips of his fingers trail from sweat-stained neck down his torso, across the waistband of his underclothes; brushes up against hardened flesh wrapped, confined in fabric with a hitch in his voice.

His fingers slip under before he can consider the action. Eren rises up and turns over, curls his knees under himself and pushes them deep into the mattress, frees himself with one hand in the same motion.

His own sensitivity catches him off-guard and sobers him for a moment. It's been a long time, and is it a good idea? Is it? With Corporal Clean-Freak in the same building?

The heat and hardness under his fingers assures him with a screaming _yes just do it_ and the thought of Levi brings his dream to the forefront of his mind again, the guttering candle and hot breath in his ear and a lithe, small, powerful body pinning him down pressing against him in the dark sinking white teeth into the side of his neck -

Eren lets out a choked whine as his spit-slicked hand courses once down his length, thumbs clumsily over the tip, spreading the bead of precum that leaks out over his flesh.

It strikes him as a cursory guilt how wrong it is to be so aroused by another man, let alone the man who holds the reins of his entire life for the next span of days; has a memory of teary-eyed Armin arguing the dirty name, the slur for such a thing that had dropped from Eren's own mouth once. The flash of a moment throws off his rhythm, causes him to falter, but he props himself up with an elbow on his pillow and starts again.

Squeezes gently at his own base, under his balls, has a lewd imagining of thin-pressed lips tightening around his shaft in the same spot; the sound, a sharp moan that leaves his throat with a husky rasp, buries itself as a secret in the pillow clamped between his teeth.

It's a secret passed between midnight acquaintances, except he thinks of a face where there isn't one. This is preferable. Because pillows cannot tell truths, and this is one truth he will not face in the clean light of early morning.

It will stay here, between his fingers and behind his eyes, as he looks but cannot touch; is too greedy to resist digging up this hastily-buried grave, lays himself open bare with his hand between his legs, stroking himself off to the thought of another man.

He's slick, and close, curls his toes over the edge of the precipice and flings himself over, his new wings too young to do any good and he can't count on the corporal to rescue him this time and then. And then.

Eren comes boneless into his hand with Levi's name in his mouth and secondhand smoke filling his lungs.

 

 

A cloth rasps over steel with all the softness of a whispering lover, kisses away the hint of a blemish that he thinks lingers near the hilt; it's more for the calmness, soothing rhythm of the thoughtless motion that he scrubs idly at the blade than out of any desire to see it cleaner than it already is.

It provides a backdrop that keeps his hands in motion as he contemplates Hanji's words. Leave it to a pair of shitty glasses and her squad to leave later yet outrun them for the sole purpose of trying to scare the shit out of him. Erwin's orders notwithstanding. (Like they were going to need "an escort" to Shinganshina. What the hell was the man thinking?)

But it's not Hanji's presence that rattles him, causes him to stay up late mulling over half-baked notions by candle and by moonlight. No.

He's considering the case of Dr. Yeager.

Hanji had managed to dig up some trade records pertaining to the man's affairs in her most recent bout of snooping around archives. Some things had stood out. (He remembers the sheet, the ink circles imprinted on his eyes.)

  
 _"Look at this," she is saying, nail pressing against the paper on the table between them, leaving an indent under the name of the shipment. "Look! What kind of family doctor needs twenty pounds of it on a biweekly basis? It's in less than six compounds_ above _the record... but you and I both know what_ else _it's good for."_

Twenty pounds of dried boneset every two weeks. Either Yeager had a _lot_ of fevers to treat, or...

 

_"Don't make that face. Do you want me saying it out loud?"_

  
No. He didn't.

  
Another swipe down the blade, fingers rough-gentle-rough.

 

  
 _"It's renowned on the Talented black market. Remember why?"_

 

It's supposed to be burned if it's used correctly, but he is definitely _aware_ of where the signs point. Because boneset is expensive as hell, and in high demand for one particular reason: its _supposed_ effectiveness as an anti-transformative agent, applied as a tonic. With a very particular recipe.

"Motherfucker," Levi curses suddenly, throws the rag with a backhand swipe against the wall as he stands, sheaths his sword. That was it, wasn't it?

 _You crafty bastard._ He thinks of Erwin almost-fond, irritable on principle. The commander left him in the dark, but the hints are glaring for anyone who's not a stupid fuck. The man hasn't lost faith in him yet.

Burning boneset reeks like hell.

The realization hits him like a train. He's got an answer yea or nay sleeping two floors up, a little shit who'd stretched his legs in the doctor's house enough to remember if it stank to high hell like a quiet fart whenever Yeager got to work.

That's the only question he's got, and it's important. So he climbs two flights in purposeful stride, alone in the inn and on the stairwell when he leaves his room.

But he pauses before rapping his knuckles on the door, hesitates suddenly on reactionary instinct rather than as conscious decision.

He hears something. It's faint, but if he listens hard he can just make out -

 _"Levi,"_ the Yeager boy croons, obviously just before he creams himself everywhere. There's a hitch in his voice that doesn't sound too out of place, if he isn't mistaken, standing with his ear pressed to the door like a perverted old man. But when he realizes the way he is positioned, he at least has the decency to pull away, because there is no fucking way he is going to look like he sort-of caught the kid getting his rocks off like he _meant_ to.

The stone wall is cool against his forehead, and he resists the urge to smash his brains out against it. The inquiry will wait. It can wait. They have days.

And if he walks back to his room a little stiffer in stance, well. It's not like training the kid not to be a useless shit won't leave any marks on Levi himself either.

(He is not thinking of bruises.)


	5. Bloodmouth, Final Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren becomes aware of just how much he doesn't understand about the events that are happening around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO! I'M ALIVE!
> 
> Some of you probably thought I would never update this fic again. You can put your fears to rest! This is gonna be a long ride, and I don't want to tap out halfway through! Juggling some AP classes, work, and other extracurriculars means I have some time constraints, but progress will be slow and steady.
> 
> To make up for it, this chapter is a bit longer than usual - it clocks in at 8699 words.
> 
> It's probably a dumb decision, but I decided to start tracking a tag for this fic. You can find it on tumblr at "fic: sang d'encre" and you can find _me_ [here!](http://kreiss.co.vu) I'll be liveblogging sometimes under the tag "snk longfic bloggin", too.
> 
> That's all I've got to say! With no further ado, please... Enjoy!

Dawn's gentle fingers creep across pine floorboards, entreat with the growling hounds of the hazy morning darkness that hide under the bed; it's their scuffling that awakes Eren from his dreamless sleep, brings him to roll over with one futile hand parting the whitewash sun-ray curtains that drape over his face.

He stares at the ceiling for a long moment, absent of thought like a glass that sits empty: he's been drunk dry and discarded. The impression strikes him, at least.

But by the image he's made a cut in his half-asleep groggy-eyed complacence, and thoughts well up underneath and poke through in blood-red beads. They drop and stain the forest green of the cloak beneath his cheek, wrinkled up like the blanket of a wailing child clutched in an angry fist. Spread like perfect circle teardrops of misery.

Eren stares at the ceiling.

_I'd better get up._

His nose wrinkles when he sees the state of his sheets. The embarrassment lingers over his head, a dark stormcloud as he bundles them up and tosses them in the corner for an innkeeper to deal with. (He won't hear the groan of disgust over the sound of hooves taking him away, so he makes it now for his own benefit. It's one blessing to count that Corporal Levi had not come to wake him.)

It is still early.

His stomach disagrees with a vehement rumble. It is never too early, he amends, to scrounge around for the makings of breakfast though at this rate he will soon plead for a three-course meal. So it is best to stifle the rebellion before it gets too far out of hand.

He dresses first, stumbles sleepily into white trousers, pulls the last shirt he's got on over his shoulders, catches the lace at the collar on his nose as he yawns midway through the motion of pulling it down to his hips. Shrugs the jacket on with little ceremony.

Takes it off again as he realizes it's probably smartest to get his harness on first; steps into leather straps, allocates a little extra to compensate for the change in clothes, pulls them painful-crease-tight against his body with the last snap of a strap against his side.

Then the jacket goes on again.

There's no mirror to look himself over in to make sure nothing is out of order, so he settles for patting himself down as he perches on the edge of the mattress to pull on signature boots.

His clothes fit perfectly. He wonders why that is, until he pictures glasses-grinning-Hanji pulling a measuring string taut through her fingers, and a chill runs down his spine.

_Did she measure me while I was out back then?_

He finds the realization to be hard to doubt in hindsight but wonders if Levi had carried that information around for the last few days - Hanji is not here, and would the corporal memorize or jot down something as insignificant as his measurements? It makes him nervous to consider.

But he trips down the stairs in the ambient quiet of the building of sleeping people, and the odd nagging impression leaves him as he regains his balance, slips around the corner into the small kitchen.

“Ah –“

The meaningless articulation leaves his lips like a bird behind his teeth, carries his momentum outward as he comes to a stop, one leaden foot dragging against the wooden floorboard, framed in the doorway. There’s a pair of wings that catches his eyes, a mild arch and bent shoulders stooped over a counter at the far end.

Raising a teacup to his mouth, the Lance Corporal turns around, an eyebrow preemptively inching upwards closer to where the fringe of his dark hair falls against his forehead, impeccable as always.

And it’s he who is the first to speak, as Eren shuffles his weight from one foot to the other and glances away, unprepared to shroud his instinctual reaction at seeing Levi after the night before, not that the man has any idea of what –

“I trust your balls aren’t blue,” he snarks under his breath, looking past Eren rather than right at him, the rim of the cup covering his mouth – maybe the snide comment was meant to be buried in the dark Earl Grey, but the younger man hears it distinctly.

He promptly sputters. Tries and fails to hide it behind a cough, hide _that_ behind his sleeve, but he ends up peeking at the man out of the corner of his eye though he attempts not to.

It’s with a flurry of blinks that he realizes he’s staring right back. Not a hint of disgust if he’s reading that face right (and he’s not sure he is, he’s never been good at that, but there’s some kind of intuition that tells him he’s near the mark) and why is that? He’s made it abundantly clear that last night is no form of secret –

he refuses to consider any reasoning as to _how_ that’s possible –

but the shamed blush rising to his cheekbones and setting his ears afire finds no causation in that expression. That unchanged expression, crisp and cool and wholly unconcerned, an aloof autumn breeze that makes him shiver and crave to draw the jacket that covers his shoulders closer to himself as if to ward it away though it brushes easily over his warmed skin.

“Tch.”

The sound escapes Levi like a sudden hissing teapot, and he tips the cup back, downs the rest of his tea and leaves the empty porcelain sitting on the counter behind him next to the washbasin, brushes past Eren with a mutter that sounds a bit like “virginal” and he does _not_ remember signing up for this kind of harassment. The young man makes to turn, a rebuttal hot on his lips, a hotheaded protest without finesse, because this is beyond crude, the lance corporal is intentionally being a huge dick –

but he jerks to a stop with his lips parted, treated to the view of the man’s back facing him, shoulders square and tense, hands balling into fists near his thighs with nails pressing into calloused flesh.

He is the picture of terse.

(Eren is missing something.)

His teeth come together with a _snap_ as Levi turns his head to face one eye to him, visage carefully impassive, a constant truth and a law as firm as water is wet and the world is wide.

"Well?" the man says simply, less an inquiry and more a deadpan remark, but the tilt of his eyebrows makes up for the lacking tilt, inflection in his voice.

"... What?"

The conversation has moved on and Eren has missed something, freezing like a deer at the end of an arrow, drops whatever shred of a handle he's got on finesse and tact when the nearly incredulous question slips out of his hands like a fish he tries to hold back. (It's too early to keep up with the soldier, hell, there's not even the rustle and creak of another waking person to be heard in the inn beyond the chirp-chirp of birds at the small window.)

"I'm going for a walk," the corporal states. The sentence seems out of context, but then Eren realizes it's elaboration.

Kind of.

(What the fuck.)

"Um," he offers as a response, because he doesn't know what to do with this particular bit of information - is there something he is expected to do? There's no script he knows to follow.

Levi sighs then, turns away and begins to move out the door, tosses words over his shoulder like a shower of flower petals, or scattering coins - they make a sharp clink as they fall upon his ears. "Do you need a goddamn written invitation, Yeager?"

"N-no sir," he stammers automatically, the hesitance born of confusion. (What the hell does he -)

Oh.

Levi doesn't tell him what to do because he is telling him what to do. Wrapped up in the irritable bite is an order - less firm than an order, even, more a request - but that's putting too pleasant of a spin on it. Whatever it is, he's expected to follow, it occurs to Eren three and a half seconds later, when he's tripping over a chair and acting immediately to catch it by the back that tips toward him, settles it gently and tries not to make an undue racket in dawn silence.

The street outside is as empty as is expected. Down the road a way is an old woman, bustling about an aged lean-to of a wooden stand, getting a leg up on the morning rush; he sees Levi turn his back to her and the sun, takes the street west, and he hurries to catch up, yanking at the long cuffs of the jacket that brush unfamiliarly against his wrists with every motion.

He falls into place two steps to the corporal’s left and half a step behind, holding an unanswered question under his tongue. He’s begun to get used to rolling with Levi’s punches, rather than stand steadfast stalwart and take the man’s irritation full force to the face. But still. (He’s practicing, but sometimes the weirdness just throws him for a loop.)

(Not that he has any example of _standard,_ at this point in his life. There’s enough all-around weirdness that he doubted he’d even really be surprised if, say, the man to his right were to suddenly grow a pair of wings and fly away.)

He sneaks a glance at Levi.

The man isn’t looking at him; he surveys the waking town with bored eyes, doesn’t appear to be searching for anything in particular. It still takes Eren just the tiniest bit aback to realize just how short the soldier is, as he distinctly remembers looking the man dead in the eye at an earlier time, but the thought is derailed when his gaze drifts over the fabric stretching across the expanse of the man’s back, the bottom hem of the jacket rippling slightly in the small breeze that washes over them, causes the wings patterned on khaki to give the illusion of flapping.

“Are you gonna stink up my morning air?” Levi rasps without faltering or glancing in his direction.

Eren flinches automatically, squares his shoulders, until the content of the statement reaches the part of his brain that’s actually awake. Instead of asking, though, he chooses a different route – he waits.

Hardly a beat and a half passes before the man speaks again, rounding the right corner before Eren reaches it. “I can’t tell if you have a burning question or you’re constipated as fuck. Spit it out.”

It might be Levi’s attempt at facilitating conversation, he realizes after a beat of proper disgust and confusion. Though whatever it _might_ be, that’s ignoring what it _is_ (and Eren spares a moment of self-conscious _I don’t look constipated_ to himself that doesn’t make its way any further than midway up his throat, as it’s a futile complaint).

“When are we leaving today, sir?”

Really he’s got a few questions, but that one answers half of them and hints at most of the others. He sees Levi look at him from the corner of his eye, the gray circle that he can see rolling towards him with objective contemplation, as if silently weighing either the question or its answer.

“We aren’t,” he says a moment later, looks forward again. “I gave my squad leave for the day. Some have family in town, and others have affairs they weren’t able to take care of before I martialed them for this ass-backwards mission.”

Eren’s very first basic instinct is to call _bullshit,_ but there’s something about the way Levi states it, says it and then is done with it, as if it’s a law for him to follow instead of his own personal decision as to whether to insert a day of “fucking around”, as he would probably put it, directly in the middle of what he is pretty sure is a serious and time-bound mission.

(He vividly remembers that the only reason he’s here right now is to expedite whatever Levi and his squad are doing in Shinganshina, which he has a strong, _strong_ feeling has something to do with his father. And all questions of speed aside, _he wants to know, too_ – sooner rather than later, he wants to understand just what his father had spent years of his life doing that apparently warranted the monarchy’s anger.

Why is his dad a wanted criminal?)

He doesn’t doubt for a moment that Levi cares about his soldiers. He’s seen it for himself, the night of the griffon attack, when he set himself against the winged beast for whatever time his intervention could have bought. There’s little one can do with swords against an enemy that can fly, earthbound as humans are, yet Levi had thrown himself to intercepting the creature with less than a thought as to his own safety. (The man presents as heartless and insensitive; belies the regard he holds for others.

Eren has no business trying to figure Levi out, he knows, but he’s not good at turning down a challenge.)

So if he thinks about it, what he’s done is not necessarily something he _wouldn’t_ do. Respects the lives of his soldiers – Eren knows already he does this, but it’s an inference he had had to make. Which makes him wonder.

If the man is bluffing, using goodwill as a cover, then surely he must know that his act of rugged disinterest is transparent, at least to Eren. _Does he…_

“Hey, Yeager  –“

“Corporal, do you think I’m an idiot?”

A sudden scrape and scuffle.

Levi is the one who pauses first, goes rigid at the sound of the question and – as Eren realizes with a wince as he stops and looks meets the glare that’s focused in his direction – his outright interruption.

“The fuck?”

The query leaves the shorter man’s lips with all the intensity of a prayer, as if he's hoping he's heard the kid wrong or something, because is this really what he's dealing with? He's not in charge of boosting the kid's meager self-esteem, he's not here for child care, he is a soldier and Yeager is now as well and isn't being a part of his squad enough of a reassurance -

Eren shifts suddenly, the weight moving to his back leg as if he takes a half-step back. _What the hell?_

Levi watches the gesture but responds only with one eyebrow rising a little higher on his forehead.

There's the steady sound of trickles of townspeople making their way through the streets of Hermiha. A nearby child shrieks; the clopping of a horse resounds off the stone walls of the houses and the alley they've stopped in front of. Morning sun shines on the packed dirt of the thoroughfare and the hair and skin of the villagers, the skin of their wares as they hawk to passersby.

None of the scenery makes its way into Eren's comprehension, focused as he is on that last fading impression, clutching onto it as it escapes him like water running through his fingers, trying in vain to grasp the air.

Was that - had that been -

_Did I just read his mind? - No. Eren, that's stupid._

"You're not an idiot, Yeager," the soldier says, turns to his right and starts to walk again, clearly expecting Eren to follow his lead; it takes him a few seconds to realize he's being left behind, and another to stumble forward, taking large strides to eat up the distance.

"Sure, you don't know what the fuck you're doing most of the time." Eren thinks he glimpses a shrug. "But no one really can. Life is one big clusterfuck of situations no one can prepare for. The only thing you can do is trust in your own choices. Idiots make stupid ones and get themselves killed."

At this point the man looks at him again. Sharply. Like a blade that holds his judgment on its thin edge.

"If you were an idiot, you would've died the other night. No matter what I did. Either you would have been an idiot with balls and smashed yourself against the ground like the griffon, or an idiot without and been gutted. You've got some kind of common sense, Yeager, and that's why you're still here." The arc of motion of his head is away and up; he almost appears to glance up at the sun where it peeks between pointed rooftops.

They make another right turn around the corner.

"Erwin assigned you to me as monster bait. You didn't know shit as a civilian, but you know how to handle yourself in a fight. Most trainees would've pissed themselves staring down that bastard, but you kept your head on straight - you've got potential, and it's because of that and no other reason that you're still in my squad. Is that clear?"

It takes Eren some moments to digest the statements, made in typical Levi fashion - but the mere fact of his having stated them speaks for the thought in his response. It's not quite what he was expecting, and he's not sure what to feel; honored, perhaps, that the man thinks so highly of him despite the very few days of their acquaintance and the even fewer number of their interactions. (It's telling that Eren cares so much about the opinion of a man who's nothing to him besides his superior officer in a military structure he is as familiar with as he is the heavy wings on his back - that is, not very familiar at all.

But he thinks this feels right, somehow. Like Levi is right and he does belong here, by a stretch of the imagination.

(He remembers hot childhood days with Mikasa and Armin swinging sticks and making cloaks of old sheets. What was it he had wished for, before he lost his life to the war over blood? That freedom, that wanderlust? Joining the Scouting Legion had been a mere flight of fancy of his youth - the dream tarnished all too quickly, it was it he had chosen to let go of rather than the remnants of his ruined family.)

The memory has no place in his life now.)

"Is that clear, Yeager?"

The Corporal sounds vaguely irritated, and the timbre, the words pull him kicking and struggling back to the present; there's probably a faraway look in his eyes before he comes back to himself, throws out a shameful mockery of the hastily-taught salute _(eyes forward shoulders back left behind the waist elbow down fist to the heart)_ with an answering "Yes, sir!"

(Because he can't help the hint of relief and appreciation that creeps into his voice and drives it up a few steps.)

Levi takes one hard look at him, scrutinizes his posture, and delivers criticism with a sighing breath like night wind. "Your posture is shittier than a sack of horse manure. Drill it a hundred times before bed."

It takes hardly a glance to know he's serious, and the incredulous curse gets caught halfway up his throat where he chokes it back. He'd thought they'd reached an understanding of sorts -

oh, but he knows better than that, doesn't he? It's nothing more than brusque advice from a man who's just as taciturn. (The prideful glow of praise doesn't leave him, even so, even though he knows he grasps at angel hair straws.)

The soldier leads them around another corner; with measured steps they pass a bakery. The door sits open, the warmth of ovens, pleasant buzz of customers, and aroma of sweetbreads drifting out; it smells delicious, like cinnamon and sugar and vanilla.

Eren’s stomach picks that precise time to remind him of its existence, giving a low rumble that has the Corporal pursing his lips as he pauses to let children swarm past his legs.

“Sorry,” the brunette apologizes hurriedly, a blush rising to his cheekbones. (It’s hardly something he can control – and he hasn’t eaten yet today – but still...)

But Levi pulls away rather than stare at him, for the first time that morning, and beckons with one hand for Eren to follow him as he steps into the corner shop.

He spends a second with a hesitating blink, then follows him, cautious of the kids that slip through the doorway underfoot, pastries clutched in grubby greedy hands that cage the frosted bread tight. An almost fond smile creeps onto his face, nostalgic as he steps into the bakery; the light and oak wood tables propped near the windows paint it a warm color. The woman at the counter smiles at him when his eyes meet hers; the quirk of her lips falters somewhat when her eyes reach the sigil emblazoned over his heart, but she recovers quickly, leans over to whisper at a young assistant whose head is bowed in the corner behind her.

Levi has a coin purse in hand. The barest hints of a frown that have taken up residence on Eren’s face brush away when the man gestures towards the glass case. “Pick something,” he says with a tone that seems disinterested, doesn’t really look back to him at all – permission to act on his own, as it seems, though Eren is still somewhat nervous.

_Is this okay?_

He begins to think the man can smell hesitance, as Levi adds hardly a beat later, “or I’ll pick for you.” He’s not sure if it’s a threat or a promise (perhaps shades of both) but the cinnamon bun that warms his hands through the thin papery material is worth it.

Then they’re back on the road.

The purpose with which his soldier walks confirms his suspicion that he has a specific destination in mind. Eren inquires after the thought ( _“Corporal, where are we going?”_ ) but receives no answer.

The croissant the man had been holding vanishes without Eren seeing him take even a single bite.

A good fifteen minutes after the stop at the bakery, Levi turns down an alley without warning, leaves the young man to nearly trip as he hastens to double back like a rather annoying puppy that dogs his footsteps; he counts doors, one, two, three on the left, drops his hand to the iron handle and pushes it open without a knock, careful to glance up and down the side street before doing so.

He ushers him inside with a finger pressed to his lips and narrowed eyes.

"Go," is his only command, pushing Eren forward with a warm hand nestled between his shoulder blades, pulling the door closed and latching it behind him. He would ask "Go where?" if not for the state of the room.

Wall-to-wall, the space in the foyer of the house (once a kitchen, if the window above the tap and the alcove in the corner are indicative of anything) is filled with what looks to be slabs of wood. On second glance, however, he understands them to be frames; smashed, pockmarked, pristine, frames with mirrors and canvases set inside them lean on each other with bowed heads and bent necks.

One dusty, round, scratched mirror throws the images of Eren's ankles back at him as he wades through the tiny path that leads across the room to the door, as if in a parallel universe a ghost of him glides over the creaking floorboards with cloudy smears where his feet should be.

There is a question that lingers on his lips; this is illegal. Any sort of art, by the King's decree, by law of the monarchy, demands the death penalty. Levi is - they are men of the King.

Why are they here? What business do they have with a run-down house that plays home to sacrilege?

He makes it to half a turn to the soldier behind him before one eye catches the full, angry stare of the other man, tight-lipped and jaw set. So he tucks the question under his tongue rather than ask it, and there it burns as he turns to put one foot in front of the other as if a prisoner making his way to his execution.

"Down the stairs," Levi orders as they reach the next room. There's a set in the far corner, stone steps that seem to lead down to a cellar; his stomach twinges nervously as he obeys the instruction, boots clacking on the worn stairs, confused and even a little angry: _What the hell? Was all of this just to get me here? Then..._

_Did he - then was what he said -_

_How much of the last few days was a lie?_

Eren turns on Levi before the door at the bottom of the stairs, whirls around with accusations on his lips and spits them at the corporal without chewing, spits seeds and shells and frustrated growling. "What the _fuck_ is going on here?" he demands, squares his shoulders far from quailing at how Levi's eyes tighten piercingly. "Why all the paintings? You're a soldier - where the hell are we and what are we doing here? What the _hell -"_

It's precisely at that moment that the door behind him bangs open, hits the wall with a noise that makes him jump but the voice that issues forth surprises him more.

He confirms it when he turns and sees her framed in the doorway, fingers pressed hard against the wood as enlarged eyes sweep over the odd pair.

"Ah, Eren," Hanji says brightly. "I thought I heard you yelling."

 

 

Eren awakes with a start.

His limbs jolt in place; the smack of the top of his head against something hard stirs away the vague memory of what might have been falling. He blinks a few times to reorient himself – the bare timbers of the inn ceiling swim into view, and he squints at them for a moment, thinks _this isn’t right_ but can’t come up with a reason as to why.

It hits him four seconds later.

“Hanji?” he asks aloud, sits up to look around in confusion – but it’s not the scientist he finds when he looks to his left, sees the body framed in the simple wooden chair, uniform jacket draped across its back and one leg folded over the opposite knee.

Levi marks the page in the book held gently in his hands, closes it and sets it on the small table resting beside the bed, speaks without his eyes moving from the hard cover.

“So.”

“Corporal –“ Eren starts, but the statement peters out to nothing. He doesn’t know what to say, seeing as last he remembers he’d been mouthing off to him, yelling things that were anything but wise to say to a man who could split him open and tie his insides into square knots with his bare hands. ( _As if he doesn’t already,_ comes the wry thought, but he shoos it away.)

Levi saves him the embarrassment, intentionally or not, by cutting him off before he can speak again.

“Now that you decided not to imitate a dead puppy for any longer, we can get moving. Be ready in fifteen minutes.”

He’s watching the soldier move, gather his things and stand from his chair; it’s only when the lance corporal reaches the door that he finds the ability to speak words again, and before he can stop himself, a hesitant “Wait,” escapes his lips.

Rather than turn to face him, the black-haired man stops at the door, pauses to show he is listening.

“What,” Eren starts to say, but waits just an extra moment for a reason he can’t explain before he continues, “happened, sir? What’s going on?”

There’s a marked difference between his tact now and his lack of tact earlier, even if his memories get a little blurry as to what exactly he said in anger at being so blatantly kept in the dark when he thought the man had finally begun to trust him, even a bit, but had led him to an abandoned house in Hermiha filled with illegal artifacts and watched over by Hanji, a scientist and a soldier in her own right and still nothing is adding up, he’s sure his guesses are wrong because the pieces of this puzzle do not fit together. (Even a hint would be nice.)

Levi gives him nothing. He fields the question with careful silence, but does not respond before he leaves the room, leaves the query dangling in the room with Eren staring glumly after him.

(And something has changed, he can feel it, but there’s no words to explain what and where and how deep the fissure goes.)

 

 

Hanji’s squad rides out of Hermiha with them as the sun edges closer to the horizon, but the squad leader herself pointedly engages Levi in conversation, does not so much as glance Eren’s direction after offering him a cursory grin as she mounts her steed. He tries to earn her attention, stares at the back of her head for a good six or seven minutes, but it seems clear – from her raucous laughter and his own squad leader’s dry responses – that they will be speaking for a long time.

He’s wondering how else to occupy his time (Petra keeps glancing at him almost worriedly, but for once he has no desire to speak with the kind woman – he’s got too much to deal with in his head that he doesn’t understand himself) when someone, one of Hanji’s squad members, rides up beside him, reins in his horse next to Eren’s and leans over to him conspiratorially.

“Yeager, right?” the man says, which makes him frown almost without realizing. Eren hasn’t seen the guy before; built like a square and almost too big for his horse, short-cropped blond hair that’s light enough to glint in the sunlight.

Eren readjusts his stance on his horse, shifting his weight back before responding. “Eren,” he says shortly, unable to stifle the irritation that has been lingering all day that being named by his surname causes to spike to the surface.

“Ah,” the stranger says knowingly. “Sorry. Braun – Reiner Braun.” He grins. “I’d shake your hand, but... you know,” he trails off, gesturing to their horses and those of the two-squad group around them.

Eren nods, unsure how else to respond.

“And this guy over here,” he tilts his head back, indicating the soldier two paces behind and one pace to the right that Eren hadn’t even noticed until his attention was pointed there, “is Bertholdt Hoover.”

Bertholdt gives a genial, if nervous, nod; he seems to go slightly pale at the mention of his name, looks as if he’s sweating just a bit. (Eren is unsurprised. Members of Hanji’s squad are bound to be a little quirky, he reasons.)

“We hear a lot about you,” Reiner adds, looking Eren straight-on with the hints of what might be a chuckle in the set of his mouth. “The squad leader just about dotes on you.”

This statement surprises Eren, who sits up a little straighter, looks at Reiner with confusion etched across his face. “Really?” he asks, though it’s more a sudden utterance than a question. The following “Why?” is an honest inquiry.

“Your father,” the large man states without remorse, only shrugs unapologetically when Eren frowns at him. “Hey, I don’t know the specifics. She rambles on about him a lot, about how he’s the greatest testament to the intelligence of the human race and you’re living proof that –“

“Squad Hanji!” comes a sudden yell, a call that cuts Reiner off as he blinks and looks up; behind him, Bertholdt’s hands tighten on their reins till his knuckles nearly go white.

Hanji raises her voice again. “Full gallop! Let’s give Squad Levi a run for their money, eh?”

Eren’s mouth is half-open when Reiner turns to him with a cocksure grin, poised to ask what he’d been about to say, for him to explain. “See you,” the blond says, presses his heels to his horse’s flanks and takes off after his crazy squad leader who recedes into the distance.

The half-hearted protest peters off into nothing as the rest of the squad pulls away, leaves Eren with many more questions than answers, taunt him with his lack of knowledge and lack of explanation.

It’s not the first time he wonders just how his life became _this_ – a string of haphazard events that don’t seem to connect in any concrete way.

(Levi is no longer busy. But the mere thought of having to endure a conversation with the man in an effort to get his questions answered makes Eren more tired than it should; he doesn’t have the patience or energy to apply to trying to figure out the lance corporal, not today. Things are some kind of sour between them, as it were, and he’s loath to let it fester but he feels like prodding will shatter whatever sliver of trust Levi still has in him. And he _still_ doesn’t know where those few hours went.)

(The way thinking about the man causes his heart rate to pick up a few beats pisses him off, too, so he drops the subject like it has burned his hands.)

 

 

He had not thought far enough in advance to have his maneuver gear equipped on horseback.

The lesson comes conspicuously gently when, at the falling rays of dusk, a howl splits the sky, answered by another and another – a dire wolf pack, Gunther says, is just over the ridge but they are downwind if they swing far enough to the left.

Levi responds immediately, draws his squad east, and Eren understands it is to save time and effort but it still irks him to leave the threat unchallenged (because none of them deserve to live, all they do is kill and kill some more and they all need to die) – he bites words back that taste like acid, and his mood sours even more when he realizes that if they were to fight they would be overtaken in the time it takes to dismount.

His maneuver gear clanks calmingly in one of the saddlebags.

Trees pass, standing sentinel alone at first, then gathering into clusters, leafy-headed clergy coming to bend their heads and pray, the wildgrasses bowing in the wind giving knee to whatever god is of the air. It’s when they thicken into what might be classified as a small wood that the dirt path on which they ride turns abruptly into a village.

The darkness falling on the horizon traps them though they’ve not yet caught up to Hanji’s squad – Levi says he doesn’t feel like feeding Eren to the wolves tonight and that’s all he says on the matter or even to Eren himself. Offers of hospitality are received but modestly turned down; the villagers are welcoming, relieved as they are to see Scouting Legion green on their shoulders, but they’ve no need to impose on hospitality beyond securing a route to the nearest small clearing.

No one speaks to the five members of the Garrison that reside in the town, that eye them with mistrust and caution. This is something Eren picks up on almost immediately, watches the way Erd looks past them or away from them and understands. (There’s something about being a member of the division all others consider “suicidal” that makes it hard to converse with other soldiers.)

Sleeping on a root only makes him more irritable when he wakes up and they’re back on the road, to the point where he snaps at Auruo so harshly that even Petra frowns at him. He apologizes quietly and immediately, but keeps himself to himself for the rest of the ride, busying himself with counting the number of birds he sees crossing the wide blue expanse above them.

Midway through the afternoon they encounter the fringe of the deadlands. The dust and death has spread further than Eren remembered, as the dirt road turns drier and the grasses browner with all the exactness of a brushstroke; the horses don’t stumble at all, but he’s close enough to think he hears Levi inhale sharply. (He must not have left Wall Sina for all these  years, Eren thinks. To be so surprised by the desolate sight that is so common through Maria District, that only now has stretched into Rose.)

Hanji's squad is still ahead of them. Eren understands that they aren't seriously trying to catch up when, against his reservations, he rides closer to the lance corporal and inquires about it. "They're the scouts," is all he says. "The further ahead, the better."

 

 

But if he hadn't known better, he'd have thought they were here alone.

None of them could have known what it was they would be riding into, as the second day from Hermiha draws to a close, shadowy curtains pulling forth from the edge of the horizon.

 

 

The first thing to be noticed when they ride into the village, nestled neatly in a thin copse preceding a thick, small forest, is the lack of sound. There are no sounds of children playing or general bustling, and Levi extends his arm to signal a halt; they pull their horses up short, more roughly than usual, and Eren follows behind Petra and Gunther with bated breath when they approach the corporal's right side.

"Corporal -" Petra begins, wary, amber eyes leaping from one doorway to the next, taking in the horses quietly stabled, the carts sitting beside houses, the remnants of a fire in the central court smouldering gently.

The man cuts her off with a nod. They can all feel it. The heaviness of the air, the fear that burns in nostrils, but _is that them, it can't be, the Scouting Legion is come to help us at last -_

Eren's eyes uncross when he comes back to himself, shakes his head roughly and thinks that he needs some more sleep, he has to be losing his mind or something. (Denial rears its ugly head and blows smoke into his eyes.)

No one notices his erratic gesture. Because Squad Levi's attention is occupied by the form of a figure cloaked in a shroud slinking out from the side of a house, hands tucked under the fabric and back hunched.

Hands drop to weapons. Petra's crossbow is primed, an arrow is loosely nocked in Auruo's bow; Levi's hands rest on the handles of his blades, almost almost a caress, the tips of his fingers barely contacting the leather-wrapped metal.

His mouth opens, lips part just gently like the inside of a rose to speak -

but the figure beats him to it, pulls his hood down to reveal the head of an old man, eyes wrinkled but bright with what looks to be unshed tears. He drops to his knees with a thump and a crack of dry grass, looks up at them beseechingly.

"The Scouting Legion is come," he says, and the words send an uncomfortable chill down Eren's spine. "We are saved."

 

 

They aren't here to save anyone.

Levi makes his stance clear when it is explained that Hanji's squad had come several hours before, had listened to the plight of the townspeople and ridden on to retrieve reinforcements; several days ago a dragon had appeared from the nearby forest and begun to terrorize the populace, carrying off livestock and, on three occasions, people - two small children, and the disappearance of a woman that day, presumed to be the fault of the dragon. At its appearance, the meager troop of the Garrison had fled, thrown down their weapons and fleed when faced with the creature's jaws. It keeps mostly to the larger wood, but at times flies out to prey upon animals in the grasslands beyond. It had not returned since the night before, but it had set their wheat barn afire the previous day.

The locals describe it as thirty feet from tail to tip; a small dragon, and relatively young, from what they gather. But it is in the Scouting Legion's hands, along with the lives of the village (roughly thirty, not including the two children). And they are the best; Squad Levi, the Scouting Legion's elite.

Levi orders them, in no uncertain terms, not to engage. They are to keep riding after thirty minutes of scouting the surrounding area.

Of course, his subordinates accept his decision with no qualms. But Eren - who has seen enough of this, enough of Levi's decisions that are blatantly contrary to who he claims to be when he shrugs on that jacket and promises his heart to humanity - will not accept such a cowardly choice, which, to him, is a decision to turn tail and flee.

They've split into three groups to patrol the wood. Auruo and Petra skirt its east border, Gunther and Erd the west - Levi and Eren ride down through its heart, searching for the cottage of the missing woman. One Rico Brzenska, a retired Garrison veteran who lives alone for the most part; it isn't uncommon not to see her for a week or more, but the creature's appearance near her home speaks otherwise.

They expect no danger, as the dragon is not present, and it is doubtful any other monster lurks in the trees and trunks within.

Eren bears only five minutes of silence going unbroken save for the noise of their horses picking their way along a widened deer path before he grits his teeth. "Corporal," he begins tersely. "Why aren't we fighting this thing? Why are we leaving these people to die?"

"Yeager," he responds with a long-suffering air, but it's more of a response than Eren was expecting to get, far from the irritable tight-lipped glare. "I take back what I said about you not being an idiot."

The young man frowns. "Why?" he asks, but it comes out more petulant, more pouty than he intended, and he nearly winces when the soldier turns to look at him.

"Tell me," he says, "what do we know about this bastard?"

The question catches him off-guard, but he tries to rattle off everything he knows. "Thirty feet, it's only been around for a few days, it preys on sheep, cows, pigs, and kids, it breathes fire, it -"

"Lives in this forest," the corporal interrupts, reining his horse in in the next clearing twenty feet ahead. "Open your eyes and look around for once."

He enters the clearing, passes the last few trees - and sucks in a breath.

It's -

"Oh my God -"

\- destroyed.

Obliterated.

The remnants of a stone wall square in a patch of dirt, with splintered boards surrounding it. The ground in the clearing is torn like deep cuts in skin, furrows cutting through grass and turning over dark earth - impressions of claws.

And the clearing reeks of smoke and monster, a stench that makes Eren gag. His horse snorts and shuffles its hooves in place, rocks back and forth as if eager to leave; he understands the notion entirely.

The click and loud bang of a flare being fired sounds behind him; he turns to see Levi storing the flare gun back in his saddlebag, the wisps and fumes of red smoke drifting away on the westerly wind.

"Brzenska's cottage," he says, frank, factual. "The dragon's nest."

"Nest?" Eren parrots back dumbly. It just looks destroyed to him.

"Scale imprints on the house floor," the corporal answers, explanatory without sparing too many words. "The dome depression. Dragons sleep like cats."

"Oh," he responds. It's all he can say. Levi analyzes the area faster than he can even look at everything there is to look at, and it makes him feel small and worthless, as if he hasn't looked deep enough - or doesn't yet know what to look for.

"Yeager," Levi says. "What would you do if someone came into your house, some weirdass stranger who kicks up on your couch without your permission?"

"Um." The question comes out of nowhere, to him, but Levi must be going somewhere with it, so he answers. "Tell them to leave."

"Exactly."

Eren blinks. "Sir, I don't understand," he admits nervously.

"The woods are this dragon's territory," he says. "The only reason the villagers have been attacked are because it sees them as intruders. What do we know about Brzenska?"

"Not... a lot?" he asks more than says. "None of the villagers really knew anything about her, only that she was here before -"

Before the village itself

_Holy fucking shit._

"Corporal, what are you insinuating?" Eren inquires hurriedly, the words tumbling out in a rush because he must have misunderstood, that's only a stupid legend, there's no way that -

Levi only looks at him, as if waiting for him to understand. He looks as if he might be about to say something.

But Eren never hears what it might have been,

because the dragon practically falls out of the sky.

The loud crash, the way the trees vibrate with the quake, frightens their horses into pelting out of the clearing before the dust clears; Eren is slapped in the face by a twig before he lifts his arm in front of his face, dropping almost snug to his horse's neck as he leaps over a log.

The earth-splitting roar that issues from its jaws makes his ears ring. But it's what it's followed by that sends the real chills down his spine; the crunch and crack of trees splintering in its wake as it plunges after them into the woods.

 _"Corporal!"_ Eren's voice edges up a few steps. "We have to fight!"

"No." The growl is exasperated by the way Levi hunches over the neck of his own horse. _"Ride. Do not look back!"_

"They'll die!" The damned creature behind them is no match for Humanity's Strongest; it's nothing but a warm-up for the man, so why the hell won't he do his duty? "Those people will die because we didn't help them! Hanji won't make it back in time!" His horse's hooves thump against the ground after another leap over a log, and he narrowly avoids biting his tongue clean off. "You're a man of the King! Those are his subjects! We _have to!_ "

"If you think the King or any of his men give a flying, _flaming_ shit about his subjects," Levi answers immediately, almost as if he hurries to dispel Eren's illusions, "you must live under a fucking rock."

But the words seem to have caused him to reach some kind of decision, because he seems to sit up straighter, glances back at the young man racing to keep up for a fraction of a second before he pulls on his horse's reins.

"Vertical maneuvering," he barks. _"Now."_

Eren obeys the instruction immediately, fumbles to draw his swords and rest his fingers on the triggers; he fires an anchor while his horse still runs, and it disappears into the underbrush when the wire carries him into the air, pulls him close to the trunk of a tree where he perches with one boot digging into the rough bark.

Levi signals for him to wait, hanging likewise nearby.

It doesn't take long for the dragon to catch up, now that they are not running away - it knocks over a tree nearby with a crack and a crash, peers up at them with yellow slit-eyes - Eren would almost pause at its expression, appearing almost sentient, but he is too consumed with anger, thinking of two children and a woman who have died because of this creature.

"Go!" Levi orders, and Humanity's Strongest dives for one wing while Eren makes a move for the other, resting half-extended against their owner's body.

The dragon roars as hot blood is spilled from the wing membrane, and they swing away as it rears up and lashes out with sharp claws; they come just shy of one of Eren's wires, and he grits his teeth and fires a fan to swing the other direction, making a turn around a tree and coming right back for more.

Levi cuts an X into one of its wings and it is hollering in pain, bugling dismally as it tries to swat at him when Eren makes it back. He makes the split-second decision to go for an eye, drags one sword across it; its muzzle opens to roar as he does so, and the scaly upper side of its nose knocks into his leg, screws up his momentum and he is falling for a moment, closer and closer to the ground but he fires an anchor that plunges into the underside of a branch, swings upside-down for a beat but rights himself using it as a pivot point.

The dragon flails madly, half-blinded; Levi opens up wounds all over its wings, causing it even more pain. Eren isn't sure where the fatal blow can be landed, where the scales have an opening, but trying to immobilize it with pain seems to be what Levi is doing, and he follows the unspoken order, jumps right back into the fray by firing his right anchor at its shoulder.

It's the first time he's tried it, anchoring directly at the dragon, and he jumps without waiting for the anchor to attach; the metal hook bounces right off the scales, thick on the upper side of its limbs, and he thinks he hears yelling as he falls, struggles to right himself in midair to catch himself on a branch or a tree or anything that will accept the maneuver gear.

He finds one across the clearing, zips across it just shy of the dragon's foot; it is fully blind now, spurting hot steaming black blood from its myriad of injuries, and it congeals like ink, inkblood.

His feet find the tree, and he stills his momentum, looks up for another anchor point; he will attack from above, strike on the way past and then move away, the best solution for an enemy he can't attach himself to.

Eren watches. Waits. His pulse hammers in his ears, the fierce joy of a fight fires through his veins; he spares a moment to admire Levi, in his element in the air as if born to use the maneuver gear, attacking the creature with quick stings and spinning slashes that make use of his momentum to the utmost. (He's mastered it in no time flat, and Eren feels conflicting pride and jealousy.)

Levi backs off after one particularly deep cut, and the dragon bugles again; the corporal must be tired from the exertion, so Eren moves in to pick up the slack.

Or so he thinks.

The soldier shouts at him to get back, but he is already falling, gets in a slice to the dragon's gums when its muzzle opens to roar, narrowly avoids the teeth and anchors back to the tree on which he started -

the beast lunges behind him, and he doesn't see it coming, alights on the trunk and turns to face it just in time for it to crash into him with one paw outstretched.

The air is driven from his lungs in one loud puff. A dull pain echoes in his chest; his vision swims, but he thinks he hears the corporal shouting, thinks he hears "Yeager!" in the distance moving further and further away but that can't be right.

Wind rushes in his ears. He's pinned to the tree, and he tries to move, but the creature's foot keeps him trapped.

He looks down.

_Oh._

He can't muster the energy to be surprised when he sees the way the skin of his torso ends and the claws begin. Wicked, curving things, talons white as bone - two of them impale his chest and hold him steady like a moth pinned to a board. Dark blood stains his shirt, his jacket. Pours down.

Drip.

Dripdripdrip.

**_"EREN!"_ **

He greets the tunnel of black as his body falls.


	6. Interim the First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armin and Mikasa find themselves embracing different roles, companions, and opportunities. The gears of conflict continue to turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even going to discuss the length of my absence because it's so glaringly long. (A little bit above two months. Good lord.) My only excuses are AP classes, work, and a convention(!!) that all occurred somewhere in there.
> 
> This chapter was a monster to handle, and it's the longest yet. Hopefully my chapter lengths will increase along with production time (please god let production time get shorter) in the future - but that should be it for the slow portion of the fic. Everything else should pick up in amount of revelations and/or action within in the chapters to come.
> 
> I'm sorry if I'm not coherent. It's one in the morning and I'm so happy this monster is done, let me tell you. (I'll be starting 7 when I wake up in the morning!)
> 
> I don't think I have much else to note here...
> 
> There's a scene that takes place in Jean's room. I'd much recommend listening to Utada's "Sakura Nagashi" off of the Evangelion 3.0 OST for maximum impact (and that's a bad pun) while reading it since it's what I listened to while writing it, whoops.
> 
> That's it for me! Enjoy!

_The wood timbers burn with a crack, crackle snap-snap-snap, the flames flicking like snakes' tongues whispering sorrows and grievances and silver-gilded lies; he thinks as he watches them curl up from the roof into the red horizon with his heart in his throat that fate, that tragedy comes a-knocking-knocking-knocking in guises as many as the stars in the sky._

_His hand curls reflexively in someone else's sleeve as he quivers in place, wants to look away but can't pull himself from the sight with a horrid morbid fascination and in his years as many as his fingers he still thinks you can tell when someone has died but there is no soul rising from the wreckage, no bell chiming and he thinks Death is fearful in that it isn't. Death is not._

_He thinks it's that day that makes him as them and them as him. Carla comes to collect them with wide eyes and hushed lips not minutes later, and it is months before she joins Mikasa's parents - but this is the death they face together, more so than his grandfather whose passing comes gently gently under cover of night and with no match, no axe to the nape of the neck._

_And when ghostly-pale hands slide up his shoulders and wrap around his neck he tilts his head back, swallows once, feels his skin ridge up and lets the breath out of himself with a sigh, the last sad warble of a bird in a cage._

 

 

When Mikasa urges him awake, grips his upper arm and calls his name and shakes him only just, he almost whispers “Mom” like a good storybook line; but this is no fairytale and there’s no mother to picture, only the girl to squint up at – young woman, really, and they’ve grown out of their awkward skins without having much noticed, but they are not the only ones with eyes. She has admirers, earns them with her fiercely pretty eyes and porcelain skin, the way she lifts boxes her own body weight and jogs up and down the stairs, short hair bouncing, slick with sweat.

In comparison he is plain. No muscle to speak of besides bare necessity, traces of baby fat on his face and he’s an inch and a half taller than he really expects to be, which his forehead routinely sends a complaint in about. A complaint that is filed, and there’s a trial assessment of what his height actually is, and it goes well for a few days but then he thinks he’s fifteen and there’s a crease and a red mark above his eyebrows. So there is that.

But Mikasa is shaking him awake while there are several thoughts reeling around in his half-asleep mind, and he jerks awake and jolts up with a sleepy start.

There’s someone at the bars.

The bars that form the fourth wall of their cell, scant torchlight flickering through from a bracket on the opposite wall, lighting the person who stands beyond them from the back and casts their face in shadow.

“Jean brought us food,” Mikasa whispers, the dull clank of the shackle on her wrist interrupting her voice.

Oh.

That’s why she woke him – she’s chained to the further wall and he the nearer, so he’s able to reach.

He gathers his grimy hands under himself and stands from the dank stone floor, the scraps of rags they have to cushion themselves, feels the cold steel of the shackle on his left hand begin to warm to his skin, brought into contact with it once again. And his steps are soft, bare cold feet on bare cold rock, he squints a bit; their visitor’s hands are wrapped around the bars, and he looks in at both of them, but he can’t read the expression.

“It’s not a lot,” Jean assures him, reaches down to grab the bundle at his feet once the captive enters the pool of light, looking disheveled, worse for wear, as if he’s got more clothes than skin, his hair somewhat matted in comparison to Jean’s well-kept two-toned locks.

“Sasha volunteered to sneak it down, but you know her – she’d have –“

“Eaten it all,” he finishes the sentence with a laugh that’s stronger than Jean expects, sounds the same as any other day as if they’re talking over a pail and a pair of mops; it’s not like they’re close, but it still sends a pang through his chest because of the way he looks right now.

Because Armin looks emaciated, paler than some creature that slinks around in the night and preys on blood, there’s dirt smeared on his face and his hands, every part of his skin that’s visible, and his blond hair hangs flatly – but there’s a strength in his eyes and his voice, eyes that are as blue as they were, blue as the sky, and Jean thinks he doesn’t give him enough credit.

“Thank you,” Armin says, receives the bundle gratefully, because it’s not something that would have been expected – he can almost hear it, the _Jean’s doing something selfless, is he sick_ that Connie’s probably whispering upstairs, the little shit – but it’s welcome, unexpectedly welcome.

Jean looks past him to Mikasa, who sits with her back against the far wall, and maybe that’s pride in the set of her shoulders; he can’t imagine she takes well to being left powerless like that, and he hopes for both their sakes that they’re let out soon lest she snap and bust a hole through the wall. Or something.

“Yeah,” he mutters absently, faraway, still looking in Mikasa’s direction.

He should go.

Armin watches Jean slip away without another word, watches him take the torch with him and then they’re doused in darkness once more, and Armin uses the chain anchoring his manacle to the wall to find his way back, sits down beside Mikasa with his legs folded and feels the way through their spoils.

Two loaves of bread and two apples.

Because of Jean they eat like kings on their fifth day of punishment, after nothing but water on every other day, and it is the first debt Armin owes him, one he will not forget.

 

 

It is three days before he returns, the sound of his footsteps tentative in the gloom quite different from the clacking of boots on stone. Armin is the one who is awake this time, Mikasa’s head pillowed on his thigh; in this cell she clings to him as she used to Eren all those years ago, as she hasn’t clung to any since their separation, wraps her face and tucks her nose in the red scarf that scarcely parts from her form.

Waking her is not difficult as much as it makes him feel bad to, because she looks more peaceful then, the wrinkles in her forehead and between her eyebrows smoothed away, than she has since those days when there were three and not two. (He knows he shouldn’t dwell, but seven years is an era and a moment all at once and, while he’s never given up entirely on Eren and he’s sure he hasn’t given up on them, seeing him and losing him in the span of an hour leaves him feeling empty and hopeless.)

She sits up and props her back against the wall with a sleepy sort of frown, says nothing as Armin stands on pins-and-needles as the blood rushes back into his legs and shuffles to the bars, approaches Jean who is half-shadowed in the light from the torch he sets again in the sconce.

“It’s not so bad down here,” is the first thing he says, looks around himself a little as if to add to his point. “Smells like old books. You must like it a whole lot.”

“Jean,” Armin says, almost a fake warning but he can’t muster the same kind of dry sarcasm that the response needs, and the servant in question almost seems to wince in response to the poorly-executed half-rebuttal.

“I’m just kidding, Armin,” he says on principle, before he pats himself down, white shirts white pants glimmering in the dark looking for –

“Here,” then he’s pressing another bag between the bars, crackling paper in a bundle. It’s heavier than he expects, and Armin almost makes as if to hand it back – or at least open to look inside and see what is amiss – but Jean presses more firmly, and the blond sees the taller’s lips come together in a line when he looks up, Armin’s thinner fingers brushing accidentally over Jean’s knuckles in the darkness.

“Connie and Christa pooled some of their rations too,” he says, almost but not quite explaining but there’s a note almost as if it’s forced from him, as if he wouldn’t have said anything about it.

There’s silence apart from the sound of Armin opening the bag and looking inside, the meager light from the torch not enough to illuminate its contents; but there’s still a frown in his lips, eyebrows coming gently together under the fringe of his bangs.

“If you don’t eat it, I’m throwing it out,” Jean says matter-of-factly, guessing at what gives Armin pause about the gift that sits in his hands.

The captive says nothing for a long moment. And when he speaks, he doesn’t look up at Jean; there’s no contact of eyes, no sky-sapphire blue to light amber, as if he addresses the food and not the young man.

“How much of it is yours?” Armin asks in a voice that should-could-would be hesitant but he thinks that this second visit might be the bare-bones foundation of some kind of tenuous trust and then he thinks that he might not be so afraid of the answer.

Surely Jean answers.

Because Jean is honest as surely as water is wet and Armin is lucky.

It is certain that he will answer.

(He doesn’t. What he does is let his eyes slide from Armin to Mikasa and back again, and then he stares and _then_ he stammers something about chores and he’s reaching for the torch, carrying it away up the stairs, and his steps are heavier, like clop-clop-clopping of nervous anxious horses.)

 

 

The third time starts with a clamor, a crash and a clang as something heavy and metal bounces down the stairs five times. Maybe six, he thinks, because he was asleep for the first bounce, most likely; by the third, they are on their feet, the two of them, the shackles and chains rattling weakly as whatever it is that finally hits the floor skips, spins to a stop.

Footsteps follow it. And they’re loud but that’s all that he can tell, the dark the dank lightening a bit at the edges like a rag dipped by the corner in a river – flicker-flicker-flickering as it burns the gloom away and then the ragged circle of torchlight creeps down the stone wall, its owner steps off the staircase.

“Rise and shine, losers,” a brisk, sharp voice sounds like a wolf growl in the dead of night.

“Ymir,” is the first word Mikasa says, names the not-stranger who peers in at them after setting the torch in the sconce, copies Jean in action but not in manner and Armin wonders at the disappointment that hits him with a thump like the wet rag, river-dipped and useless now.

“Oh, good, you’re alive,” the young woman says, faux gladness as she pulls down the handkerchief tied around her mouth, stirs the lank brown bangs that hang down her face and bares the freckles dusting her cheekbones in the meager light. “I was concerned I’d be feeding dead bodies.”

Armin, at least, lets the words wash over him even as Mikasa bristles just slightly, tenses against the side of his arm; they lean together for comfort when there’s darkness, lest they forget the other’s presence. He knows Ymir is not gentle with words, lets them fly like a heavy-handed slap and a sharp prod of encouragement.

He is familiar with stings.

“Where’s Jean?” he half-asks half-wonders aloud as he shuffles over to the bars, slides his feet rather than stepping because the torchlight doesn’t reach his shadowy toes and the shaded cobblestones he crosses.

It must surprise Ymir that he asks, because she squints at him with eyes further narrowed than they usually are, as if she tries to look through his skin and into his bones. It’s after a long moment that she rocks back onto her heels and shrugs noncommittally. “Like I’d know,” the servant says, gestures at the thing she had kicked down the stairs but a minute earlier. “I think that bucket is his, but no one’s seen him all day.”

There’s a large dent in the container, and it’s covered in dings and scrapes; it rests against the wall, and the mere sight of it makes Armin frown, though the frown deepens as her words process. “He’s missing?” he reiterates back to her, lets pale hands rest on the iron bars, wraps his fingers around them.

“Ditching, more like,” Ymir corrects with a raised eyebrow. “He’s been working his ass off for the last week smuggling food down here. He’s probably kicking up in a broom closet. Whatever it takes to avoid those MPs.” A snort. “The only reason I’m not making myself scarce is so I can rip Fard’s hand off if he tries to slap my Christa around again. Thanks a real fucking bunch for bringing them down on our heads, by the way.”

“Are the Military Police monitoring everyone?” Armin asks. It’s a surprise to him. Jean has not said anything of the like; he’s not considered how Eren’s appearance, their attempt to escape, may have had repercussions besides their detention.

Rather, he has, but has not thought the Military Police to stoop so low, or to care so much about a few orphans. (And yet again, Armin is the cause of a problem, a wound made by his own uselessness that festers under unclean bandages.)

“Nah,” she articulates, “just our merry little family unit.” Ymir adopts a mocking tone of voice. “ _The One Hundred and Fourth Training Corps of His Majesty the King._ What a fucking joke. ‘Reserve soldiers’ my ass – more like seven years of the cleaning duty from hell with no combat training to speak of.”

Armin makes as if to speak, but she notices and rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t even start with the ‘it’s peaceful’ argument. You don’t know shit about the real world, Arlert.”

He almost blurts it out to her then and there. Because he does understand, more than she thinks, more than anyone thinks. But it’s like water floods his throat as soon as the inclination crosses his mind, and he chokes the words back. The urge passes, recedes to low tide, and he lets the long breath out, as if a deep sigh.

“At least we can slack off,” Ymir allows, appears not to notice Armin’s puff of breath. “Horse-boy’s a smart one for taking advantage of that. You owe my Christa for this, by the way,” she says, hands a bag through the bars to Armin, who takes it reluctantly. (There’s a shoot of fiery guilt at the effort the others have gone to to defend his and Mikasa’s error.) “She realized Jean was gonna bring you idiots food today, and took it upon herself to get you a little grab bag. Isn’t she sweet?” Ymir smirks. “I’d trade spots with you any day if Christa brought me lunch. The dungeon bit sucks, though.”

“Thank you,” Armin answers, and Ymir can look at him strangely as long as she wants – it doesn’t change the fact that Christa has some sort of corn allergy.

And the two loaves, as he checks when she’s taken the torch and marched back up the steps, are slathered with honey and taste distinctly like cornbread.

 

 

It is not ten minutes later, after the strange, lanky man who brings them a pitcher of water every morning and a stale dry loaf on several occasions leaves the dungeon with soft steps that pad like cat feet as gentle as his face and his voice that gives Armin shivers, not ten minutes after what he assumes to be the very crack of dawn, that someone comes back down the stone steps with footbeats he thinks he recognizes.

And Mikasa is asleep when he slides away from her, nearly runs to the bars, feet tap-tap-tapping on the cobbles he learns to recognize under the balls of his feet, holds the chain in his hand to smite its rattling (he doesn’t want to wake her), wraps his fingers around the iron cylinders as the person reaches the bottom of the stairs.

There is no torch this time for his eyes to adjust to; there’s a pause as the person halts, looks around blindly as if eyes will pierce the dark dark dark confines of the dungeon, and he finds the “Here,” that escapes his lips to have a certain rasp that he wishes he could take back but doesn’t when it slips out between the bars like a stream parted and elicits a release of held breath from the stranger cloaked in the darkness.

There’s the soft brush of fingers on his for a quarter of a heartbeat before the person jerks them back with a hiss.

“Your hands are freezing,” comes a voice that is familiar, a painful familiar that makes a smile break across Armin’s face before he can stop it – but it is dark, and the dark hides the warmth of his cheeks at the realization of how much his mood has lifted from merely the individual’s presence.

He’s on cloud eight and a half for a sliver of a moment before he remembers a question. “Are you okay, Jean?”

“Huh?” comes the response. Blind hands sweep just across his knuckles; they wrap around a bar of the fourth wall of the cell as if to anchor the servant in place.

“You were missing yesterday,” the blond begins, raises a hand to smooth his lank blond hair away from his face; strands of it hang before his nose and tickle when he speaks. “The Military Police –“

“Who told you?” he interrupts, and the silence that falls, Armin’s words clamped behind his teeth, is response enough. Jean’s hurried inquiry turns his stomach.

_Jean is honest, Jean is honest, Jean is –_

“Look,” he says, cuts off the train of Armin’s thoughts, “the MPs never leave us alone for long. I didn’t tell you because I figured you’d blame yourself about it, alright? See, you’re doing it right now.”

He doesn’t answer because Jean is right, and he knows it, and they both know it.

“Trying to run through the castle was a really dumb idea, and your friend seems like an idiot in general – maybe you got caught, but wanting to get out isn’t something that you should feel guilty for. Don’t beat yourself up for trying, Armin."

There’s a whistle like Jean’s breath passing through his throat, singing like breeze through a narrow gap in stone. And he holds his tongue, waits for the words that have yet to bubble up and out, and if he strains he thinks he can hear them as if fish under the glass surface of a lake.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you’d gotten out,” he says, quietly. “I want to get out of here, too.”

And the dark is a physical barrier, though Armin’s eyes try to search the face of the young man that he knows is there. A wall impenetrable as cold iron, and he doesn’t understand.

Because he –

_“It won’t be long till basic starts. Then I’m out of here – I’m shooting for the MPs so I can live a nice, cushy life in the Interior. Let’s face it, this world’s gone to hell. Only the idiots think they can change that.”  
_

He has failed to acknowledge that Jean is as subject to change as the world around them.

“Hey,” Jean says softly, and it stirs Armin’s attention again, there’s a scuff as his foot moves along the floor.  His voice sounds hollow, would make a low noise if he could rap his knuckles against it. “Just – think a little harder about how you do it next time. If anyone’s got it in them to make it out of here, it’s you.”

Armin is consumed with a sudden, irresistible urge to find Jean’s hand with his own. He reaches, lets his fingers skim over the iron bars in the dark that shields his eyes, but the sound of the young man at the bars moving causes him to pause.

He sounds further away when he speaks next. “I’ll see you later,” Jean says, and then there’s a quick pat-pat-pat of him going up the stairs. When Armin strains enough to hear the door creak closed at the top of the steps is when he releases the breath he realizes he has been holding, the sound escaping him like an air-filled waterskin deflating, and his shoulders slump, hands fall away from the bars with a gentle little jingle of the links of the chain connected to his wrist.

And Jean has not answered his question. Rather, left him with more – and words, words that sit on the tip of his tongue and whisper secrets he hasn’t fully realized himself.

Denial ripples across the water’s surface, stirs waves of doubts and dodged explanations.

 

 

Later that day, as the bottom of the sun crests the horizon far beyond the castle’s reach, a guard with metallic armor shining mirrorlike clanks down the stairs with a torch clamped in his mailed fist.

They’re both awake and they share a glance as he comes down a-rattling-rattling-rattling, Mikasa tense and Armin with his eyebrows furrowed, confused, discerning.

_A soldier... what for?_

“Oi,” the man says as he reaches the bars, thumping one fist against their cage; metal screeches against metal and Armin, at least, flinches, but Mikasa is steadfast with teeth gritted and she’s ready to jump to her feet but his hand on her knee causes her to hesitate.

He squeezes, and she settles; stiffens as he gathers himself into a stand next to her.

“Are we to be executed?” he asks in a voice that isn’t as strong as he’d like it to be, but still defiant – that’s the only explanation he can think of, though it seems a bit... much... to make examples out of two useless servants as to why one should be blessed to serve the monarchy or something to that effect.

And if he’s going to die anyway, then – well –

There is, in fact, something he can do about that.

He doesn’t notice he’s quivering until the guard, taken aback, snorts out a laugh like a dog choking on a bone. The torch in his hand waves as he chortles.

“Where’d ye get that idea? Commander Dawk thinks ye’ve spent enough time in the dungeon. Ye’re to resume normal duties.”

At the sound of _normal duties,_ the way they both relax is almost audible. He feels almost silly for being so paranoid, but then again, it’s not as if it’s unfounded –

That’s a thought he won’t pursue.

“How long has it been?” Armin thinks to ask; the thought occurs to him as he tries to count it out in terms of Jean’s visits. But the numbers elude him, and the light from the torch begins to give him a headache; the thought of the sun makes him wince after so long in the dark.

"Ten'r so days," the guard responds, now jiggling the key in the lock of his shackle; he rubs at his wrist when the metal falls away, squints at the dark crease marring his flesh in the light that injures his eyes. "He don't want you to starve or nothin'."

And it is far too early for Armin to be as cynical as he is, he realizes when he bites down on the disbelief swelling under his tongue; he forgets that they are considered to be of some use to the Military Police at least. (How better to drum up recruitment than offer indentured servitude with the faintest glimmer of a hope of actually becoming a soldier?)

Mikasa is silent, stoic, as she rises to her feet with her limbs free of chains; she is dignified with her shoulders straight, but neither one of them remarks if her hand slips into his and their fingers twine together comfortingly as they follow the guard up those stone steps, one at a time to the lives they have known for seven years.

And little do they know those lives no longer exist. End, ended much as do the lives of butterflies or mallards or humans themselves - suddenly, and with only the semblance of life to remain.

The door's open, and light shines down; they shield their eyes from the burn that they have been unaccustomed to, though the rays filter greyly through a large window across the hall.

"Sir!" The soldier is saluting when they crest the staircase, and Armin blinks the pain-tears away hurriedly, surprised - is it Nile Dawk, who could it -

The only words he breathes past his chapped lips are shock and wonder.

"Commander Smith," and Mikasa squeezes and drops his hand, stands apart with shoulders square - no salute, they have not that privilege, but -

The man stands tall and firm, neatly-arranged blond hair, strong jaw, determined blue eyes - even as his hands curl into a salute, facing them.

It puts Armin off guard, but Erwin Smith speaks little to him, offers only a cursory "Armin Arlert," and a nod, before he is turning to his companion, and then the other shoe drops.

"Mikasa Ackerman," he says in a tone that is markedly warmer, and Armin watches Mikasa's fingers catch in the threadbare corner of her worn red scarf. It’s warm like scalding water or the flush of blood under skin, caught in embarrassing failure, makes Armin’s palms tingle and he’s only looking on in sympathetic silence.

“If it isn’t a problem, I would like to speak with you for a moment,” the man says; tall, firm like a statue and the way the air seems to still around him leaves both trainee-servants with odd feelings in their guts, as if a wolf stares them down.

Mikasa nods, after a moment; it’s a truncated, chopped gesture but the commander of the Scouting Legion accepts it at face value. Armin reaches to brush fingertips against her sleeve as she moves to follow the man who sweeps down the hallway, but falls just short.

She does not notice.

Only moments later when their – his – escort clears his throat does he realize his arm is frozen, extended.

And he has not moved.

 

 

He doesn’t expect the door to open the moment he lays his knuckles upon it, but it does, with a wailing creak and a loud scrape. So Armin stands dumbly in the doorway with his fist raised as the room’s occupant freezes, the ghost of a syllable – he had been about to speak – falling from his lips.

“Armin?” Jean says after a moment, the surprise written across his face in hurried scrawl; it isn’t as if he requires confirmation, but Armin finds himself nodding anyway.

The moment stretches taut like cotton fiber and they both feel it, and Jean spurts the first thing he can think of to break the silence. “You look like _hell,_ ” he says, squinting down at the blond with streaks of grime on his clothes and skin. But after the declaration he winces. “Sorry.”

“No, I know,” Armin says, with a kind of wry smile that borders on a grimace. He shifts to the other foot. “May I – come in?”

Jean blinks, and it’s almost comical. “Oh. Oh – yeah. Yes.” He pushes the door open wider and moves back, makes room for Armin to enter.

He isn’t surprised by the militaristic cleanliness of Jean’s quarters – he is a clean person by nature and such tendencies are only exacerbated by the nature of their situation. He is fortunate enough to not share his room – but it is just large enough for him, with little extra space not consumed by the sparse bed, dresser, and writing table and desk that occupy the three corners the door does not. A simple rug rests on top of the stone floor; it was probably once a deep green, but appears almost brown with age.

The young man himself wears civilian clothes, explaining the position of his uniform boots (at the foot of his bed) and pants (folded over the chair’s back); he sort of looks about the room nervously as Armin pulls the door shut behind him, in a way that would seem a little self-conscious if Jean wasn’t the person he is.

Nothing is said between them for a moment; mostly they just stare at each other, the time in the dungeon seeming a part of another life, some surreal event that has had no bearing on their relationship.

Were it ten days ago, Armin would not be here. Were it not for those ten days, nothing would have changed.

But there’s something in the air between them that hangs unsaid, some remnant of dark conversations – and the daylight cast upon them does little to throw it into stark relief.

“Where’s Mikasa?”

Jean breaks the silence first, but he isn’t looking directly at Armin as he asks the question; rather stares past his head as if the wall behind him is especially interesting.

The servant at first is unsure how to respond – state the truth and continue the line of questions that he has no answer for that is sure to follow? Or dodge the question?

“Commander Smith summoned her.”

“Oh.” Jean pauses, and Armin readies himself for the obvious query.

“So you came here.” But what comes out of Jean’s mouth isn’t a question as much as it is a statement formed on half-solid ground that wobbles with uncertainty.

The way the blond glances away is answer enough, he thinks. But the young man speaks again anyway as if a dog with a bone he can’t put down and it makes him almost ashamed. “Armin –“

“I felt like I needed to be here, Jean,” he interrupts with a cringe, because damn it that sounds _weird_ no matter how true it is.

“Whoa, hey,” Jean says immediately, and when Armin looks up he has his hands raised in a placating gesture. “I was going to ask if you wanted to shower, or something.”

“Oh.” It’s Armin’s turn to be surprised, and he is at a loss for words; it’s almost strange to him. But he tries to classify the emotion he’s feeling as relief, which seems close enough to the mark to pass. “Not – not right now. I just –“

“Armin.” Jean interrupts him and he doesn’t even notice his hands have begun to shake until they stop. “I get it, really – you know what. Just.” He gestures vaguely at his bed. “Sit down, alright?” He appears to understand the way his eyebrows furrow; gives a one-shouldered shrug. “I need to wash those sheets anyway.”

“Is this okay?” Armin’s voice is small.

The sigh is exasperated. “Dammit, Armin, just – yes. _Yes._ I’m serious. Sit down.”

His boots are abandoned near the door, but his white uniform clothes stay on; Armin seats himself at the foot of the bed, pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. Jean seems to look at him with an odd expression on his face, but the blond blinks and the moment is gone; the tawny-haired young man finds a place on the opposite end of the bed but doesn’t turn to face him once he is seated, instead stares down at his hands which rest between his knees, his arms laying on his thighs.

The silence that pervades this time is much more comfortable than the ones before; only the sounds of their mismatched breathing stir the air. It’s many a minute before either of them musters up the want to speak, but the words that come out of Jean’s mouth are so gentle Armin might almost mistake them for a sigh.

“I spent a night in a cell once,” the teenager says, studying one of his palms; calloused from chores and domestic work, but not from the handle of a weapon as Armin thinks he might have preferred. Though worn, he thinks also that they might be soft.

“Really?” The thought surprises the blond, and he clasps his arms tighter; speaks just as quietly as the atmosphere seems to weigh on his voice. _Yet he still wants to join the Military Police Brigade, which is in charge of the prisons...?_

“Yeah. Back home in Trost,” and it doesn’t seem like he will say anything else. The words hang in the air with a sense of finality, and Armin knows well enough not to ask further, because what is being shared with him is what Jean wants to share, no more and no less.

Still. It makes him wonder. Jean is a straight-laced kind of guy, apart from his tendency to speak his mind and his bent for self-preservation; there’s little Armin can see him doing to land himself in a cell besides picking a fight with a soldier, and even then it’s a maybe.

He is too charming for that.

He’s lost in thought considering it, and as such nearly misses when Jean picks up the frayed thread of the almost-conversation, running a thumb along the edge of his sleeve now, across a glimmering scar that rests just at the ridge of the center of his wrist. “There was,” he starts, “what they called ‘confirmed blackblood activity’ in my neighborhood, which is what they say when they think someone with a Talent might be, you know, trying to be a functioning member of society.” Jean pauses to let Armin interrupt, but the blond says nothing, only looks up at him; their eyes meet, brown to blue, before the taller of the two looks away again. “What the military did – their reasons for doing so – it was wrong, and I said something. You know who I am; I speak my mind, and to hell with the consequences.

“Not that what I said did anything but land me in jail while –“

At this moment Jean’s voice cracks, and his jaw clamps shut. He shakes his head, ignoring Armin’s concerned blue gaze, giving no indication that he realizes the lessening space between them as the recent-prisoner gently slides closer.

“Jean?” Armin asks, once the quiet reaches beyond the point of typical pause.

The only type of response he receives is the way Jean’s hands turn over, his fingers gathering together into white-knuckled fists.

But this is a question he has no choice but to ask.

“You...” he begins, but looks down at his knees, not wanting to see the look on his face but at the same time wanting and wishing with all the world to see a flash of – something, he doesn’t know what. “You called them – people with Talents.”

He can’t ask it outright. Something stays his tongue, but his meaning is apparent. (This he hopes.)

A half-snort, a release of air through Jean’s nose before he responds.

“As opposed to _inkblood_?” He almost spits the term, the slur like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. “Because what makes us so different, really? Think about it.”

There’s a faint touch of a smile to Armin’s lips when his gaze drifts away, and he looks ahead, the tips of his fingers resting against wrinkles on his sleeves. He doesn’t answer in anything but a sort of appreciative acceptance; there’s words he might try to say, and they linger on his tongue and edge closer to his teeth but he swallows them down because it’s not. It’s not time for something like that yet, even if Jean’s words suffuse him with a sort of comfortable warmth like his grandfather’s hot cocoa or the tea that only Mikasa can get just right.

The thoughts of his grandfather and of Mikasa cause the happiness to drain out of him like there’s a leak in a teacup, and he’s struck again by the _loneliness._ There are two bodies missing from next to him, one green courage and one dark grey strength and maybe that’s why his feet led him here. Because maybe Jean can fill one of those spaces, even if just for a little while. (He hopes so selfishly.)

Is he _using_ him?

Jean huffs a breath, tightens his knuckles on his thighs and rolls his shoulders forward; his spine curves into an arc, contrasts with Armin’s tightly-bound form.

He breaks the silence with a few hesitant words like dewdrops clinging to edges of leaves.

“The MPs raided my neighborhood,” he says, as calm as the surface of a river, glass-stillness belying the currents running underneath. “They put my best friend and his family to death.

“I got to the execution grounds when they were looping the noose around his neck. When they dropped him, I was on the ground – they pinned me down and made me watch when they did it and he was _smiling_. I could tell he was crying but he was smiling. That’s the world we live in.”

When the quietude returns Armin has questions upon questions to ask, but none of them feel right and all of them taste like ash. He thinks for a moment, until he realizes he is aware of exactly what he wants to know.

“Do you hate him?”

Jean hesitates to answer as if the question is unexpected. Or as if it is expected, and he doesn’t know what to say in response.

“Marco,” he begins but his voice wavers and he swallows before continuing, “he was a good guy. Kind, obedient, hardworking, selfless; the opposite of me, huh? You’d think I’d hate him. But truthfully... he was everything I wasn’t, and we made up for each other’s faults. He didn’t watch out for himself, so I did for him.

“He didn’t watch out for himself that day. If he’d have wanted, he could have easily gotten free. I guess I kind of do hate him for that,” he shakes his head, “because he refused to see he mattered. He didn’t want people to be afraid of him.

“He wanted to join the Military Police Brigade even though he was Talented. He wanted to serve a crown and people that hated him; he brushed it off by saying ‘people are afraid of what they don’t understand’ and carried on being a fucking saint because that’s just who he was. We were headed the same place but for entirely different reasons.

“They hanged him and then they took an axe to his head. Said they didn’t want to ‘take any chances’ with him. And then the drunk fuckers sang drinking songs as they butchered up the bodies.”

Jean’s eyes look haunted and suspiciously moist; he blinks rapidly and purses his lips.

“He wanted to change things,” he says, looks away. “Idiot.”

Over the course of Jean’s words, Armin had slid closer, unfolding himself; one arm splayed over his knees, but the other propped upon the bed behind him. At the last word, he looks up at his companion with eyes that might be misty themselves.

“He changed you.”

It’s with a glance of surprise that Jean looks over at him, as if having forgotten Armin’s presence altogether.

He doesn’t expect the hand in his hair, strong fingers stirring grime-striped blond locks in a ruffling motion.

“Thanks, Armin,” he is saying as the shorter of the two inadvertently leans into the contact. (He thinks he enjoys it, but the thought itself causes red-blush shame to cross his features in a fiery flame.)

And the words bubble in the blond’s throat, the phrase easier than ever to utter; it takes but a few short articulations and he will understand. He is sure. Of anyone, Jean will understand – it is what he has to believe.

But – there is a reason he shouldn’t though he doesn’t know what it is. Has this conversation reeled to this direction through nothing but coincidence? – He doesn’t know but the words eat at him anyway.

Force his mouth open.

He leaps to his feet when the door hits the wall, and so does Jean, who shifts uneasily from foot to foot as if caught in an intimate situation – but the heart that jumps into Armin’s throat gives a certain throb at the sight of who it is framed in the door.

It is Mikasa, scarf wound round her face and twin tracks of tears disappearing under it.

“The hell?” is the phrase that escapes Jean, breathless, but the blond is speaking over it before he knows it’s there.

“Mikasa?” he asks worriedly, steps forward – because she looks shattered, and what had Commander Smith done to her? The Mikasa he knows is unbreakable, immovable – except –

“Armin,” she says, and her voice is audible if a little wavering; she takes a step into the room, clutches her scarf tighter. (He thinks she looks very small though she is larger than he is; she curls in on herself as if weights pull down her shoulders.)

“It’s – it’s Eren.”

 

 

“Have a seat, if you’d like,” Erwin says, ushering her in with a large arm holding the door and the other gesturing towards an elegant, if flimsy-looking chair seated before a giant desk.

Mikasa stands in front of the chair, posture stiff as Erwin pulls the door shut behind himself, strides across the room with purposeful boot-clicks, and lowers himself into the comfortable armchair at the other side of the desk, rising up between them like a large wall. He doesn’t comment on her stance; instead, he folds his hands on the surface in front of him, looks at her with an appraising and confident eye. Blue under blond.

She almost thinks she sees a flash of Armin in his features – or the man that Armin might become. 

“Mikasa Ackerman,” Commander Smith states again as if by way of greeting, or as if collecting his thoughts. It is all he says, and the awkward pause that follows makes her almost itch.

“Commander,” she says meekly, for lack of a better way to respond.

He nods – pleased? – and shifts. “I’ve had a look at your aptitude scoring. For a trainee in the reserve corps, your score is excellent. Phenomenal. Even extraordinary,” he continues, and each word of praise makes the ill feeling in her gut grow.

(At praise she does not furl open and blossom like Eren might. At praise she wonders what will be asked of her. Because this conversation has a purpose.)

“Thank you, sir,” she responds, as it seems the right thing to do. The grime on her clothing does not bother her and she doesn’t think about the stain that her thumb runs over, on the forearm of her other sleeve.

Erwin inclines his head to acknowledge her words. “Yet those talents haven’t even been trained, with the way your corps has been pigeonholed into a long-term chore duty.” He looks up at her. “I asked you here to extend my personal invitation for you to enter into the Scouting Legion, Miss Ackerman. With a soldier like you, there are many things we could accomplish – hand-trained by Lance Corporal Levi, you alone could stand candidate for the title of Humanity’s Strongest Soldier.” He shakes his head gently. “Your trainee corps is filled with many rare talents and bright minds; I don’t know what is being accomplished by pushing you into the basement, but my influence is limited. You are the brightest star among the One Hundred and Fourth, and in the Scouting Legion, your usefulness to humanity can be guaranteed.”

Mikasa’s strength is not in bargaining. She knows this; she can make deals in muscle and bone that far withstand the bindings of words. (For a moment she wishes Armin were here, but doesn’t know what help he’d be.)

But she has questions. And those questions are crucial to her understanding, and to her decision.

“Eren Yeager serves in the Scouting Legion?” she asks, unsure; she thinks that’s where he is after the confusion of his latest appearance, and this detail is pivotal.

(If she must protect him, that is answer enough for her.)

“Under Lance Corporal Levi,” the soldier confirms with a nod. “His special circumstances permit him to serve as a trainee in the Special Operations Unit – the same unit you may be assigned to, if you accept this offer.”

She almost commits at that moment, with the promise of her brother; but his shifty wording makes her nervous. (She knows she never would have noticed it if not for months, years spent with –)

“If I accept your terms,” she begins hesitantly, “does Armin Arlert stay in the trainee corps?”

“The young man you were imprisoned with?” Commander Smith says thoughtfully, almost to himself. He considers the notion for a moment; the look on his face is unreadable.

After a few seconds she is met with a gentle frown and a nod, the weight of his options resting on the expected. The young woman’s lips draw into an arc like a hill obscuring the sun.

Between the two of them...

(It’s become a choice and she can’t see how it has come to this.

She wants her family back.)

Her brows furrow together and she thinks to open her mouth, but the sudden bang of the door being thrown open behind her makes her flinch, makes her whirl in place as Erwin jumps to his feet.

A messenger stands in the doorway, chest heaving and anxiety palpable; his bark of “Sir,” and a hasty salute nearly causes him to drop the letter he holds in his hand. “A message for you from Lance Corporal Levi, sir. Says it’s urgent.”

Erwin’s face is stony as he accepts the letter. “Thank you,” he offers curtly, withdrawn already in his own thoughts as he nods dismissal to the messenger.

The door closes and leaves them in silence but for the sound of rustling paper as Erwin opens the message. Mikasa feels out of place but the pounding of her heart in her mouth at the sound of “Lance Corporal Levi” absorbs her attention.

_Eren’s squad leader –_

She knows better than to ask after the contents of the letter, but she wants to know. She desires to know. Desires it like cool water on parched throat parched skin cracked dry from fire and smoke and.

Finds her fingers curling around the arms of the chair behind her; braces herself on them. She’s afraid of the contents of that letter from the way the Commander’s face has flattened; she doesn’t expect him to set it down and look up at her, fold his hands like before but with a decidedly more somber air.

He looks her over appraisingly. Sympathetically. (It makes her stomach drop.)

“It seems the situation’s changed,” he begins. He sees her impatience no matter how she tries to hide it behind her own still face, and he shifts in his seat. Furrows his eyebrows, a wrinkle springing up between them.

“Lance Corporal Levi reports of difficulties his squad faced just north of Trost. It seems he’s sustained injuries. And –

“Eren Yeager is confirmed deceased.”

Mikasa settles into the chair heavily; it’s her arms that buckle under her, but her fingers hold tight to the wood nonetheless. She feels the scarf press against her throat, under her chin, and in that moment can’t decide whether she would rather tear it off or tuck it closer.

She does not budge – allows the knowledge to rush over her like a dread tide, that it might pick her up and carry her away.

_No,_ she wants to say, but Commander Erwin is staring right at her and she has a choice yet to make. The weight of her limbs is unreal. Everything is too much and she struggles to breathe because it can’t be. No. That’s not how this works – he doesn’t get to leave her.

Eren does not quit. He does not give up and die, he doesn’t, he _can’t..._

And what sort of thing would take her family from her.

Is it some monster? Some political machination she wouldn’t understand? She’s no stranger to the climate inside Sina, and not ignorant to the enemies that Grisha Yeager has made.

It isn’t real and she wants to punch something, wants to see herself bleed because maybe that will make her feel – what – who –

The urge to cause injury takes Mikasa such that her nails sink into her palms and her teeth clench around the words she spits out at the Commander’s feet. _You can’t win if you don’t fight._

“I’ll kill whoever’s responsible and whoever stands in my way. You have my oath.”

 

 

She doesn’t begin to break until she is in the hall. Her shoulders quiver, begin to shake, and she falls against one of the walls, clutches her scarf to her face and breathes in a scent she can pretend is her brother’s.

The scratchy fabric sucks up the tears that stream down her face; she’s sniffling gently and it’s unbecoming, she is stronger than this, but she allows herself the grief.

It still doesn’t seem real, but the mere thought – the possibility – that Eren could be –

It tugs at the delicate sutures in her chest and pulls them into sharp-pain positions because a knife there opens two wounds. (The word ‘family’ is several stabs in the chest of Mikasa Ackerman, with several names faces times circumstances and she should know better than to cause herself this weakness.)

But she isn’t –

She isn’t alone.

Not this time.

Her steps clack lightly on the cobbles as she strides down the hall. She thinks she has an impression of where Armin might be – but she must find him. She must.

She must.

 

 

In his office, Erwin gives the letter one last look. Folds it twice, and stores it in the top-right drawer which is empty save for two pens, the ink gathering on the tip of one matching the color of the words on the page. He must remember to dispose of them later. 

 

 

The halls of the Capitol complex are dark with the onset of night save for the torches that burn in wide-placed sconces. The young woman moves from the stables towards the servants’ living quarters; her footsteps resound off the walls despite her attempts to muffle them. The scuffing of a khaki jacket is also less than secretive, the rub of fabric distinct.

At this rate she should be less than surprised to encounter another soul along her path, but the sight of a servant at the top of the first set of stairs still causes her to tense.

To little avail. The female servant simply continues dusting the railing, ignoring the other’s existence almost outright except for the gentle moving away as she ascends the steps. So she pads up the stairs with only her heel-clicks breaking the silence between the two of them; follows the rich carpet down the center of the hallway as she continues further on, torchlight causing the mane of the unicorn emblazoned on the back of her jacket to appear to wave and blow in the wind.

It’s several moments later when the servant speaks up, causes the other to pause mid-stride:

“Not gonna give me a hand? That’s pretty ungrateful.”

She does not respond, merely continues walking onward. She has no time to waste hanging around.

The sound of the servant following nearly causes her to widen her gait, but she stills the reaction and continues her calm pace, the better not to raise suspicion.

“Where are you in a hurry to this late at night?”

Her mouth tightens. _Why won’t she just..._

“I’m _walking,_ ” she retorts, but the tone is less angry and more icy.

A chill runs down the servant’s spine, but she tucks the feather duster into her belt and rubs her palms together, relishing the warmth of her blood flow being restored. “Need an escort?” she says flippantly, needing a reason – any reason – to stick as close to her as possible.

Because the hairs on the back of the servant’s neck stand on end and she knows well what that means. Has an inkling that her hands may get very warm very quickly. (She takes the moment to roll up her sleeves as if preparing for a boxing match).

“You don’t want to follow me,” the young woman says, tone dropping in degrees.

“Looks to me like we’re headed the same direction,” shoots the servant back, hanging a few feet behind the woman nonetheless. She observes, has observed the unicorn emblem on her back, but makes no comment upon it.

The woman takes the opportunity to rephrase. “ _Don’t,_ ” she stresses the word, “follow me.”

“If anything, _you’re -“_

The woman whirls around on one heel. “Screw off to somewhere else or things will get ugly.”

At this, the servant is intrigued, though the threat ought to have dissuaded her interest. To the contrary, she seems less likely to leave off than before – which causes the simmering irritation in the woman to come slowly to a rolling boil.

“I’d hate to see what you call ugly, if insulting random strangers isn’t it,” the servant responds, folding her arms.

Forward progress has halted and this is even more irksome. “ _Go,_ ” is the woman’s last wearisome order, with a sharp gesture to follow – but the servant does not move away, rather edges closer to loom with intimidation over the much shorter woman.

“I think you should leave instead, MP,” the servant stresses, giving name to the soldier’s faction. “We haven’t done anything of note today to warrant you skulking around living quarters in the dead of night.”

“What I’m here for is no business to you,” the soldier growls lowly.

“It became my business when you strutted suspiciously through this hallway I’m cleaning and tracked dust everywhere.” The servant squares her shoulders and stares the soldier down, shifts further into her personal space. “Why are you here?”

“ _Clean._ ”

The servant shrugs. “No.”

The soldier turns away to stride down the hall but is given pause by a hand grasping around her wrist.

Immediately both the soldier and servant jerk away, cupping their free hands to the point of contact; the servant’s skin takes on a bluish tone while the soldier’s burns an angry red.

The servant feels it coming before she tastes the iron in the air; lurches backward a step as a stalagmite of ice stabs up through the floor, through the space where her chin just was.

She tumbles back, jerks hard to the left and tucks into a roll, avoiding the mass of sharp-edged ice, and retaliates with a strike of her own; a twitch of her fingers directs the form and intensity of a stream, a tongue of fire that lashes out like a whip, melts the tips of the stalagmites and sends the soldier reeling to avoid it.

Swing, counter; neither gives ground as the pristine hallway is mauled by magical constructions of ice and fire. Pools of water gather at the base of the steps and in the grouting of the cobblestones, making the footing slippery for both combatants. The servant keeps herself low to the ground, avoids a series of stinging ice shards winging towards her and foregoes melting them in favor of propping herself up on both sets of toes and one arm to conduct a fireball with the other.

A wall of ice springs up between them, meets the fiery sphere with a gasp of steam and dripping water.

There’s little either of them can do against the other besides attempt to hold ground –

The sudden sounds of shouting and metal cause both females to freeze in place; the soldier reacts first, sends a last-ditch barrage of falling chunks of ice through the ribbing of the ceiling to at least incapacitate the bitch who kept her from making real progress this evening.

Then she is off, lingers not to assess the damage as she sprints back the direction she’d come, retreating for the time being. Only the melting chunks of ice are left to show for her presence – and none are any sort of identifier.

The echoes of the clicks of her boots only just recede by the time armed and suited soldiers – guards – arrive on the scene. And to them, it is the image of destroyed. Puddles of water, great puddles that seep into the carpeting and gather at the low points of the floor, cover every inch that does not play host to some remnant of blazing fire – ash, cinder, a tiny flame burning on the fringe of a running carpet or a tapestry on the wall.

There is little to be done in terms of repair – or explanation.

Barring the pair of feet that marks the body of the servant, that is. She is hoisted between two soldiers by the arms, a stream of blood running from her nostril, but before she achieves consciousness (for interrogation) there comes another interruption.

A young blond woman makes her way quickly down the hall, approaches the soldiers firmly with no regard as to the scene around them; in her hand is clutched a towel and she strides confidently through the assembled masses to raise it to the nose of the servant.

Gently, gently, she dabs away the blood to the tune of water dripping and small blazes crackling – cups the servant’s cheek in one hand and runs a thumb over the spray of freckles.

Her voice is a whisper, contrasts with the confused conversation of the soldiers who mill nearby, unsure where to even start. Training does not account for this – not for a mysterious conflict between –

_“Inkblood,”_ comes the inevitable whispers of accusation. But the word that leaves the young blond woman’s mouth is different, of a different vein and tone.

_“Ymir,”_ she all but croons, brushing the servant’s hair back from her face.


	7. Apocalypsis, Part the First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This skin doesn't feel like his own. And it might take more than answers for him to get used to its fit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah HA, I did it. This chapter's done before I leave for Mexico (as I'll be leaving my house approx. 24 hours from this publication time, ahaha) and I didn't think it would be!
> 
> I ended up scrapping the last scene I had planned, because I accomplished the same goal without it. It was a little bit of action, but there wasn't anything relevant that I didn't include otherwise. As a result, this one is a tad shorter than the most recent chapters (and a bit more dialogue-heavy), but around the average for the fic.
> 
> Hopefully some of your questions get answered herein. But there's lots more to come, and lots more questions raised, don't fret. (I feel like the end is a bit of a cop-out, but it's all I can include in this chapter without the plot lines starting to tangle. All good things come with patience.)
> 
> Enjoy!

_Falling, falling – blackness closing in, swirling, and he’s –_

_Plummeting through space like a stone loosed from a sling or a seed from a tree and his head swims with swarms of bright light searing pain he blinks tears away with body heavy, heavy but his_

_Numb arms reach out at nothing reach reach he doesn’t hear what a voice yells besides a clarion call rings crystal-bell clear in his teeth and his head and it_ pounds

_white hot like coals in his skull and he feels the wind in his bones as it rises rises like captive spirits rushing to hold and the ground draws_ **closer and**

Eren lurches upward in bed with a gasp. 

His heart pounds pounds pounds against the inside of his chest and his shoulders heave, whistling air and it’s soothing, soothing like the featherdown mattress on which he rests – the blanket that lays across his legs.

Bare legs.

_What the hell –_

There’s sunlight that pours through the window near which the bed is situated, the sparse adornments to the average, small-looking room. It’s familiar in the way the same expression is on different faces, and Eren stares around himself for a moment with his weight resting on the palms of his hands before he sighs in, lets his shoulders bow and relaxes.

Why is he here? Where is...

The memory rushes back to him and his hand flies to his chest so fast he nearly hits himself; fingers curling grasping at the thin white fabric that wraps it, bandages, his only clothing.

Probing, probing, he can almost feel it – can almost feel the claw impaling him between the ribs – knows there should be a gap in skin, there, somewhere, a softness under the bandages or a reddish-brownish smudge of his blood, the wrappings themselves evidence enough of _the dragon_ but

he feels and feels and there is

Nothing.

He can’t feel anything.

Not even when he wiggles his fingers in under the bandages (he thinks he can hear what might be Hanji in his mind sighing in exasperation) and runs the tips of his fingers along the gap between his pectorals.

Smooth, unbroken skin.

“What the _fuck?_ ” he says, aloud, to the cold stone walls and the afternoon sun.

 

 

 

He tries getting out of bed at one point but his legs refuse to carry his weight, and he will not crawl along the floor just to reach the door; can’t even hobble, reduced to sitting alone until someone remembers that he’s here.

Thinks to yell but doesn’t know where _here_ is and if that’s, at present, a good idea.

It faintly disturbs him in the way that it disturbs someone who’s never spent a long time sick or injured that someone else has handled his body while he was unconscious, taken care to wash him – he doesn’t know how long it’s been but since the wound is _healed,_ against all odds...

needless to say, Eren is nervous about who will come walking through that door.

 

 

  

“Hello?” he says when he hears someone rap on the door, gentle quiet and proceeding to open it without waiting for an answer – but the startled gasp he hears betrays the intruder’s expectation of an empty room.

Or, more likely, him unconscious.

“You’re awake,” Petra says in surprise, holding the basket to herself; the corner of some kind of cloth, white, pokes out and it distracts his attention for a moment. (Looks away because there’s something in her face that makes him nervous, something in wide brown eyes that regards him with _caution_ and what the hell is that supposed to mean?)

“Yeah,” he says by way of answer, with little else to add. After a beat of hesitant silence green-blue-green eyes fall to the hands in his lap, naught covering it but a short-cropped pair of undertrousers and the blanket splayed over his thighs.

Petra is the first to clear her throat, to make her way slowly over to the side of the bed, seeming almost hesitant and Eren has got to be seeing things because this isn’t like her. “Your uniform is cleaned and mended. Can you put it on all right?”

The question brings the beginning of a flush to his cheekbones but he shakes it away, only thankful that the care with which he’s been treated has extended to his ability to handle his own clothing. “Yeah,” he tries to say, but there’s a blockage in his throat and he swallows past it with the barest trace of a stutter.

He swings his legs over the side of the bed, gingerly gingerly rests his weight on them as Petra hands him the stack of clothing, appearing to hang back only just.

Before he can wonder at it he is speaking, does not pause to consider the implications. “Is everything okay?” he asks, concerned, jarred by the way amber eyes seem to flick between him and the door.

_What have I..._

“Hm?” She jumps. “Oh. Oh! Yes, everything is – fine.” Petra’s lips come together in a thin line after the words leave her lips and her eyebrows draw together, another skittish glance.

“The corporal will want to see you,” she says after a moment, speaks as he is opening his mouth in earnest; Eren’s jaw snaps shut, and he nods.

_That means... that means he’s alright._ He can hear the dragon crunching through tree branches behind him if he closes his eyes. _Then... he saved me?_

“I’ll go and let him know you’re awake,” says one of humanity’s most talented soldiers, who glances back at him as she leaves with a look of – of something in her eyes, something that makes his stomach twist, and he feels a little nauseous though he can’t place why.

(The whispers are less than fuzz in his ears and he doesn’t know yet how to strain to hear them.)

 

 

 

He’s got pants on and his shirt halfway down his torso when Levi all but kicks his door in, storms in and shuts it behind him with what’s almost a scowl on his face but there’s something missing. “Are you _done_ with these fucking three-day sabbaticals,” he growls, folds his arms and levels his best withering glare at the teenager perched on the edge of the bed

Eren’s got the fabric of his shirt all wound up in his hands and his soldier’s arrival forces him to stop in his tracks, the sudden pressure almost ache of his temples making him wince and press the tops of his hands to his forehead.

(As quickly as the piercing throb comes it goes as if it has never been there at all.)

Struggling to right himself and embarrassed at his relative state of undress, he yanks the shirt down across his abdomen, and then the soldier’s words process.

“Three days?” he parrots in confusion. Looks up at the lance corporal with tired tired golden eyes.

Golden like the onset of the setting sun, or predatory glint in darkness.

(When his hands drop again to dust across the bandages that hide no wounds, he misses the way Levi _almost_ recoils, because what he expects to see is the hue of the ocean and not the eyes of a wolf.)

The wounds are healed and it doesn’t make any sense to him, because people just don’t heal that fast – he’s seen plenty from his dad’s work, lots of cuts and scrapes and even someone half-mauled once from some kind of monster loose in the vicinity (not to mention his own wounds he’s nursed from tussles on the street, a broken arm at six and even Armin didn’t have sympathy for the way he constantly prodded at it) – but people are fragile, and even he is not this sturdy and

“What the hell is going on?” he asks but it isn’t even angry or indignant, it’s pleading as he curls his fingers into the sheets on either side of him, stares wide-eyed at the soldier with after-blink sea-glimmer irises.

Levi looks at him for a long time, silently wondering.

(Eren thinks he can hear something, some noise far away but he can’t make out anything of detail.)

The moments crawl past, and the soldier then sighs through his nose, jerks his head back as if to gesture at the door against which he leans.

“Finish getting dressed,” he says. “We’re going to see Hanji.”

Eren means to ask _How am I alive?_ but somewhere in his throat it gets lost and instead what he says is a meek “Yes, sir.” Not wanted but he will go with that – because he’s happier to see that, that vague expression rather than anger.

And rather than – the unreadable look that had flitted across Petra’s face at every glance. Something like –

something like terror.

 

 

 

He keeps his hands on the wall to keep his balance, because while he’s regained himself enough to move his legs seem to sometimes forget that he’s actually alive and threaten to land him face-first in the dirt. He hopes that it’s for this reason that the lance corporal is leading them through the alleys of Trost – while he knows this city back to front from years under Hannes he doesn’t know where they’re headed and why, and he’d prefer the hit to his pride over a repeat of the last time he’d been led blind through a maze of back doors and dust swirls. 

Could he go to see Hannes? _Should_ he? The last he’d known, he’d spit on everything the man had ever given him, stolen from him and used his prize projects for his own selfish wants. But he’d ended up here all the same, with the gift model of the Maneuver Gear in the right hands even if the prototype he had kept for himself.

Eren almost trips on a corner of a rotting crate and Levi doesn’t turn at the noise, simply ignores him and keeps walking, draws the brownish heavy cloak around himself at the hint of dust rising to stain his pants, and –

Why hasn’t he noticed the traveling cloaks they’re shrouded in?

_Damn it,_ he’s caught in some illegal business again, he is _sure,_ and what the _fuck_ is going on here _this time?_

He asks as they round a corner, the busy street rising before them at the end of the alley. “Where are we going?” comes the query and this is what makes the corporal glance back at him, elegant features and sharp cheekbones framed by the hood of the cloak.

He looks paler than usual.

“To get answers,” he responds, and he’s barely continued walking before Eren retorts.

“ _That’s_ not an answer,” he bites out before he can stop it and then Levi twists to stare him down and he’s nervous, nervous at the scathing words that are about to fly from his lips, and –

“ _Trust me,_ Eren,” he says and it’s not scathing at all.

But it hits him in the gut with a sense of _off_ ness, not necessarily wrong but not right either, and it isn’t just the words that get him – the request (it’s not an order and he was not expecting this and never asked for it either) – but the name too.

He called him by his _name._

_crunch crunch crunch_ **thud**

_the wind picks up and_

**_“EREN!”_ **

****

****

****

He doesn’t remember blacking out.

But this day has been a rough enough day so far that he isn’t surprised when he comes to with a splitting headache, sitting in a chair.

In _another basement._

If nothing else, this stint as an honorary member of the Scouting Legion is teaching him how to handle surprises – especially those he is greeted with upon returning to consciousness. After _falling unconscious._

He doesn’t have enough room in his brain between the pain and the sound of whispers to contemplate his alarming propensity for passing out, so instead he settles for rubbing his temples with the palms of his hands.

(At least he clearly remembers feeling light-headed in the alleyway. This time he knows, understands, that it’s because he wasn’t exactly fit to be walking – not invincible, after somehow returning from the quite possibly dead three days ago.)

He wants those answers, and when he looks up he lets out a sigh of relief – because there she is, sitting at a nearby desk, talking to the corporal who leans against the stone wall with his arms folded.

“Hanji,” he breathes, and the utterance causes the scientist to turn in her seat, Levi looking up as well.

“Eren!” she says brightly, rising to her feet. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were awake.”

“What happened?” he asks, more to the lance corporal than to his conversational partner – but it’s Hanji who answers, anyway, making it clear that Levi had told her.

“It sounded like you fainted on the way here. Of course, you don’t have your strength back yet.” She turns to shoot the soldier behind her a glance of what Eren thinks might be disapproval, not that the shorter man gives any indication or response whatsoever. “But what matters is that you’re feeling all right! Are you dizzy at all?”

“No,” he says, and it’s truthful; he uses his hands to prop himself upright in the chair, an armchair that’s soft enough that it might swallow him whole if he doesn’t keep his feet on the floor. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Well,” the scientist says, tapping her lower lip with the nail of her finger, “if you start getting lightheaded again, just tell me. We can –“

“He gets it,” Levi steps in before Hanji can get out the next word. “We don’t have a lot of time, so cut to the chase whenever you feel like it.”

There it is – the corporal’s sharp tongue, though being used to address his fellow soldier and friend as opposed to the delinquent under his care. Eren should be relieved, but he’s more concerned that Levi hadn’t treated him in the same manner.

What the hell had happened?

“Ah,” the scientist fires back knowingly. “But aren’t you always in a hurry?”

Rather than sniping back Levi merely inclines his head in Eren’s direction, leads Hanji to turn and face him with a hand up to adjust her copper-rimmed glasses. She looks at him in interest, the way his knuckles turn white when his hands ball up to fists perched on his knees and he stares at the ground.

The young man looks up, the very image of serious.

“Hanji,” he begins. “How am I alive?”

The inquiry hangs in the air between them, all of them, as if they stand around looking at a dead animal on the floor and Eren swears he stops breathing for the seconds (stretching on and on) that it takes someone, anyone, to respond.

( _Isn’t that the question of the hour,_ he thinks he hears Levi saying, but when he glances over the man’s lips are tightly sealed, pursed  as he eyes the nails on his hands.)

The scientist is worrying that same lower lip between her teeth, and it seems she feels the increasing weight of the dead silence that has fallen upon the small room; when she makes eye contact with Eren, serious, steadfast, she lets out a puff of a sigh and rolls her head from one shoulder to the other, a distinct _crack_ sounding in the quiet.

“Promise me you’ll take this calmly,” she says first, and that makes him about nine times more nervous than he would have been had she just outright told him.

Levi’s looked up, looking at _him_ now and the flush that runs down his neck is, hopefully, hidden by the cloak. He’s got no choice, they’re both watching him like eagles to a mouse and so he nods, grits his teeth as he feels his heartbeat begin to speed up.

Hanji lets one hand rest on the back of the chair next to her, the sturdy wooden one that sits at her desk. Then she moves it right back off. Raises her arms to take her glasses off; huffs on them to fog the lenses and rubs them on the white sleeve of her uniform shirt, the jacket missing.

She is stalling and he almost speaks up to ask her again because this is downright fucking painful and what isn’t she telling him –

“Your Talent saved you.”

...

Silence.

Absolute _silence._

“What?” Eren doesn’t think he heard that right because the phrase makes no sense. (His heart goes thumping thumping thumping away and there’s more whispering but he ignores it.)

“According to the eyewitness report,” she says, doesn’t glance at Levi but Eren hears his name in the empty space between, “by the time you were caught, unconscious, seconds after the dragon’s blow landed, the lacerations in your chest had already begun to heal.”

He’s shaking his head but Hanji is still speaking. “By the time it had been slain, only blood remained as any evidence of injury. You were bandaged to preserve appearances, but it was your Talent that kept you alive – you would have bled out in minutes otherwise.”

His first instinct is to look at the corporal because this has got to be some kind of prank, if one in bad taste, but the man is staring right back at him with a sort of gravity that matches perfectly the measured tone with which Hanji speaks.

And.

He remembers then the look on Petra’s face – not sheer terror but definitely a certain kind of nervousness as if facing down some sort of wild animal and _this_

_Is this what he is?_

His hands are human, his body is human, _he’s human_ and yet what Hanji is telling him...

The evidence can’t be denied.

 

 

He should be _dead._

Before he can stop himself he thinks he might prefer to be dead than – 

No. He can’t think like that. Because Levi saved his life and for what? For _what?_ It’s unreal, surreal to him and he feels like he’s in a dream – because how could he not know? How could he not know this about himself?

But that means he...

“Are you going to execute me, then?” he says hotly, and he directs the question to the lance corporal who has twin swords resting on his hips under his cloak, he _knows,_ and he refuses to glance away when he sees in the corner of his vision Hanji moving to do something, and –

“No,” Levi bites out, and it’s full of something that could be vitriol but seems and sounds more like finality, closing the book eliminating the option and Eren’s story is not going to end here.

But it doesn’t make any sense, not to him, and he knows he’s missing something and why won’t anyone just tell him where all of the fucking pieces are to this puzzle?

“Why not?” He’s not sure why it makes him angry, but he does, and he’s pushing himself to his feet and glaring with burning eyes at the man whom, if nothing else, is hell-bent on keeping him alive. “With all due respect, what the _fuck?_ You’re a soldier –“

“Not according to _you,_ Yeager,” Levi bites right back, eyes sharp and arms folded.

“The hell is that supposed to –“

“ _Boys,_ ” Hanji cuts in, and both gazes snap to her, both varying degrees of offended at the way with which she has broken up the conflict. She takes advantage of that attention while she has it. “Eren, have you noticed anything about the Scouting Legion?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, because the question is vague and of course he’s noticed things, like the importance placed in defending your comrades and fighting to the last, the heroic blood that seems to run through all the soldiers’ veins a distinct forest green – but he’s sure that’s not what she means.

Hanji looks slightly put-out, and shakes her head. “Never mind. That was a strange thing to ask. Rather – do you hate people with Talents?”

“ _Yes._ ” The firmness with which he states it, declares it, echoes Levi’s finality earlier.

The corporal does not respond. Hanji, however, nods – as if she’s expected it. “Why is that, Eren?”

He gives her a look as if she’s lost her mind. “Because,” he says, “they’re evil. What they do – the fact that they exist is the reason why monsters exist. People every day die because inkbloods kill them, either on purpose or not. They’re dangerous, they’re _murderers,_ and all they want is for their monster pets to wipe out what’s left of humans so they can take over. They aren’t doing it because they have to, either – they’ve got all that land outside where the monsters run free, but they’re greedy murderers and I’m going to kill all of them. _Every single last one_.” His blood is boiling at the end of it, his chest heaving, and he uses the arms of the armchair as support.

Her expression doesn’t change and that pisses him off a bit too even if it doesn’t occur to him why. “But you’re one of them. And one of your parents was, as well. Does that still hold true? Are all ‘inkbloods’ evil?”

He’s got his mouth hanging open to respond automatically with something venomous but the reminder makes something twist in his gut; he looks down at his hands.

_I don’t..._

He doesn’t feel any different. He still feels like _himself_ and that’s what scares him – because is he going to become like that? Is he...

Which of his parents was it?

Eren feels as if he’s going to be sick. Swallows against it.

His _mother._

He knows it to be true and then he _understands,_ why it was he came home one day to her laying in the kitchen with a pool of blood around her head, hands folded on her stomach. Because she’d been one of them.

She’d been one of those people he deems so eagerly to be evil and she’d never been anything but – nothing but a loving mother with a short temper whenever he got his nose too far into whatever he couldn’t handle, always quick to scold him but quick to dab away angry tears and to hold him close and

Eren finds himself sitting on the edge of the armchair with his arms wrapped around himself. The khaki uniform jacket tries its best to restrain his movements and the fabric is rough under his fingers but they feel nothing.

No one in the room comments on the pearly tears that begin to fall – one, two, three, and then he blinks hard and rubs them away.

There are so many questions he doesn’t know how to answer, and the anger isn’t something he wants to let go of because then who is at fault?

“Are there people who are evil?” Hanji tries again and he doesn’t look at her as he nods.

“Does that make all of them evil?”

He knows this and it’s humiliating how Hanji is leading him by the hand through all of these questions and this is happening in front of _Levi, Levi_ of all people and Eren shakes his head as he looks up, his voice a rasp.

“No,” he answers, because he does understand and he’s been a coward.

“Then –“ the scientist begins to say, leans slightly forward in her standing posture, almost eager and it’s Levi that stops her.

“Enough,” he interrupts, snaps a glance off to the scientist and she hangs back, looks sufficiently cowed under his piercing gaze. Glances back to Eren almost apologetically but he is looking up at the lance corporal – when wintry eyes meet Eren’s own teal there’s a look shared that none can put words to, and maybe it’s one of thanks.

(The whispers stutter in his ears and he tries to push them away.)

“What do I do now?” he asks, and the plea is under his breath. He doesn’t look at either of the soldiers, doesn’t look anywhere but at the floor between his boots, a soft frown dusting his lips. Because there goes the path under his feet and maybe he’s stepped off it a while ago but now there’s no use pretending – because what the fuck _is he?_ It’s –

“We don’t know what your Talent is,” Hanji says thoughtfully, glancing to her desk rather than at him – the picture of ashamed though it doesn’t really connect to him why that is. “We could –“

“I’m not talking about that,” he interrupts and it doesn’t register to him that it’s Hanji he’s interrupted and not whispers at the edge of his hearing and he shakes his head as if to silence them. “What – what do I _do?_ ”

It’s Levi that responds after the long pause, but he says nothing – he pushes himself off the wall and strides across the room, only the sound of his boots breaking the silence clack-clacking on the dark stone and then he’s standing right in front of Eren, so close too close for him to _breathe_ and Eren has drawn himself back with his shoulders up, half-recoiling.

Levi takes a fistful of the front of Eren’s shirt. Uses it as leverage to pull him down –

Eren’s heart _stops_ –

but the man’s fingers, cold to the touch, grasp the leather cord looped ‘round his neck and tug, exposing the brass key warmed by the skin of his chest.

“Nothing’s changed,” the lance corporal says, holding the key up by the diamond-shaped handle to hang between Eren’s eyes. “You’re still Grisha Yeager’s brat kid, and I’m here to make sure the King gets what he wants.”

 

 

 

He walks out of that basement alive and it’s more than he expected, behind Hanji and in front of Levi; he’s shaking a bit as he mounts the very narrow stairs, his hands are at least, and his stomach feels alarmingly close to turning over.

Whatever the hell is going on his father has something to do with it, and that’s what he holds onto to maintain his sanity – because years of prejudice are not going to go down without a fight and it’s all he’s got to resist the urge to break down and start crying, or something.

He’s spending too much time in his thoughts and his head is hardly habitable – ghosts or intangible ideas float around behind his eyes and he doesn’t know what that means or how else to describe it.

But he’s definitely not feeling anything close to alright, as he nearly trips over the last step.

The room he arrives in is as abandoned as the last, though it is empty rather than filled with shrapnel and hidden-away artifacts; smells faintly of mold and the sun pours through the clouded window at the other side.

Hanji pauses and turns to him, abruptly.

“I need you to do me a favor,” she says. “Both of you.”

Eren blinks. He feels Levi crest the stairs behind him but doesn’t turn.

“We don’t know what your Talent is.” Her eyebrows are drawn together on her forehead and she speaks swiftly, urgently, russet eyes flicking from Eren behind him and back again. “We don’t have a lot of time, and here in Trost, both the Garrison and the MPs will be watching your movements. It’s too dangerous to leave the city without finding the Maria’s heel of your regeneration. I _need_ you to try and figure it out.”

“Maria’s heel?” is Eren’s first question, one of comprehension – he’s never heard the term and he’s not sure what the woman means.

But at the inquiry her countenance seems instantly to brighten. “There’s an old myth –“

“Your weakness,” Levi cuts in, to save Hanji’s breath and their time, and Eren turns around so fast it’s almost a jump. “The one wound you can’t heal.”

The scientist looks like she’s been deprived of some great joy but it doesn’t near match the way the blood drains from Eren’s face, because he understands the trial and error process, and _that’s –_

“Without murdering him?” the lance corporal asks, sharply, of Hanji before Eren can say anything and they’re just going to talk over him so he moves a hair to the side though his heart is in his throat and how the hell are they going to do _that?_

(Because _what if it’s just a fluke, a lucky break, and the idiot goes and gets himself killed with a smile on his face -_ )

Again he hears it and again he glances at Levi, but the corporal is standing stiff with his lips pressed into a thin line and it leaves Eren feeling... cold. There’s an abyss in his stomach because he doesn’t know what’s going on and isn’t sure he wants to understand.

It’s the beginning of a nightmare much worse than the last – because in the last he lost his family, his friends, but in this one he is losing himself.

“You won’t,” Hanji says knowingly, shoots a lopsided grin at Levi, and slips out the door she had propped open with her foot.

Levi restrains Eren from following her with the barest touch of a hand to his shoulder and a stern look; he doesn’t understand what the corporal is getting at for a moment but at his nod, his okay, he nods too and then they’re in the dark alleyway.

He has some questions and he knows who to ask, and it’s not in the plan (and he doesn’t know if there _is_ one, if he’s the only one feeling like he’s floundering right now because as always Levi’s face betrays nothing) but it takes him a few steps to work up the courage to bring it up.

When he turns around, at the mouth of the alleyway shrouded by stalls standing on either side of its entrance, the sight he finds causes him to hesitate for a sliver of a moment – because there isn’t a pair of piercing eyes focused on the back of his head.

Levi is pressing two fingers of his right hand into the inside of his left wrist, just beyond the cuff of his white shirt (smeared conspicuously with the barest line of grime that looks as if it’s come off his finger, and he might not have noticed it but for how utterly telling it is), they’re moving in a circular motion and he’s frowning to himself from what Eren can tell of the positions of his eyebrows.

He covers for the surreptitious glance by rising onto his toes, as if scouting out the area, and it’s when the corporal shoots him a look of irritation for taking too long to do so that he shuffles his feet and asks the question.

“Why are we sneaking around?” he inquires.

(It’s not the question he meant to ask.)

The way Levi frowns at him _this_ time reads a little bit more like “do you _need_ to know” than his “quit wasting our time” from just before, and he can figure that by the dulled steel of his eyes and the way his eyebrows almost tweak up at the ends and what the fuck, Eren, it isn’t the time to suddenly learn how to hyperanalyze facial expressions.

“The Legion is under watch,” he says crisply, apparently deciding Eren does in fact need to know, and maybe that has something to do with the reason his squad leader had apparently sent Auruo and Petra out earlier in the day in the same cloaks to run errands.

(Because the inn in which they’re currently based isn’t directly connected to the Scouting Legion, and if they continue creating the ploy that there are two travelers in brown cloaks -)

“Why?” His expression darkens. It’s not _what_ because he’s long since stopped being surprised by whatever underground shit the lance corporal has one foot in when he has the other in the military.

“Shit your little brain wouldn’t be able to handle,” he responds, and it’s hardly confidence-instilling but it’s the kind of tone that means he’s said enough and won’t say more, his lips thinning and he’s staring Eren down and it takes a moment but he backs off. He does.

It’s in the irritated puff and the barest tilt of his head to the side.

(Baring his neck – and he doesn’t realize that their little battle of wills is settled on a primal level.

Neither of them realizes.)

The silence drags out for a few moments but Eren breaks it before the man standing before him can. He gets the feeling that his idea, his proposition will be accepted before he even speaks it as Levi would have taken control had he had a specific goal in mind.

“If it’s all right,” he starts, “I’d like to visit someone.”

 

 

 

Out on the open street they have their hoods pulled as far forward as they can, which is fortunate for Eren; he can’t see the likely vitriolic glare Levi most likely has focused on his back as he weaves in and out between the small bubbles of static people in the crowd.

He isn’t sure what has changed, that he’s started to assert himself or that the soldier is beginning to yield control – whether it is one or the other or both. He thinks he maybe possibly should be _terrified_ of him, given that he had reportedly slain the dragon in the time it took him to – to –

To _heal_ and the thought still makes him nauseous because yeah, yeah he gets what Hanji’s getting at but it still. It still doesn’t explain, to him, what the hell or how the hell -

That's why he's putting aside his qualms and steeling his nerves. Because if it really was, if it really was his mother,

then Hannes has got to know something.

(The whispers are quiet but they are legion and he blames it on lack of sleep that he can't keep his thoughts straight.)

His boots kick up clouds of dust as they trudge up the street; the decay has spread over Trost entirely while he's been gone and he sees it in the trees that are withered and knuckly like old men with bowed heads, the gray and brown, the lethargic chatting of children sitting in the doorjambs of abandoned boarded-up houses instead of playing with the vigor they usually possess.

He knows this neighborhood like the back of his hand and his stomach drops when he sees that house standing empty - that's the one where the tobacco roller lived and set up shop, the Tius residence, and there's nowhere much else to go if they've left.

"Here," he says under his breath, just loud enough that it hopefully carries to the soldier behind him, ignores the stares of the quiet curious children across the street as he steps up to the house's door. He's only been gone for a fortnight at most and yet he feels years have passed since he's laid his fist against the wooden door, raps upon it twice with his other hand gripped in the fabric of his cloak.

Hannes is frowning when he answers the door, face unshaven and vaguely grizzled and shaking his head - then he takes pause, glancing from one hooded figure to the other in what he expects to be confusion but edges more on fear.

Wordlessly, Eren reaches up to pull the hood away from his face just slightly, that it rests still upon his head but doesn't shroud his identity to the man before him.

"Eren?" Hannes squints at him in disbelief - he recognizes the flush on his cheeks. He's been drinking.

"Hey, Hannes," he says, suddenly unable to make eye contact. (He shouldn't have come here.)

"What the -"

"Tell the fucker off inside if you so please, but we're being watched," Levi says, quietly but commandingly, which makes Eren flinch just the tinkest bit and glance at him in confusion, unable to help himself, because isn't that the point of their disguise?

But the corporal doesn't look back at him, instead maintaining sharp eye contact with Hannes who stares right back; the silent contest falls just short of five seconds and then the ex-soldier is nodding and moving aside, beckoning for them to enter with a shrug.

The second the door closes Eren turns to his old mentor.

"Hannes -" he begins, tone apologetic, but the ex-soldier speaks over him.

"The hell are you doing back here?"

Levi glances at him out of the corner of his eye as if to inquire _why the hell are we here_ but Eren resolutely does not meet his gaze, speaks at his boots with bowed head instead.

"I'm," he begins. "I wanted -"

"Did you get them out, at least?"

When his eyes snap up Hannes looks serious and grave, his cheeks still tinted with vineflush but his eyes crisp and clear. It's a change from sights he remembers, from the early days, when the man used to drink himself into a stupor under the kitchen table on nights when the memories piled up.

Eren's mouth hangs open without words. Because - did he  _know - ?_

"Did you save Armin and Mikasa?” More than serious he is eager now, expecting a nod or a positive response – but at every second that passes Hannes’ expression dims.

His hesitation is his answer, even before he looks away. “No,” he says. “I didn’t. I tried –“

“Then why are you here?” The smith’s arms are folded; Eren recognizes the apron he’s wearing, burlap worn soft with age and stained with soot, draped over his plain shirt. (What’s new is the very, very small design embroidered on the breast, just above his heart – a pair of roses on a gray and white field, their thorny stems entwining. The Garrison’s emblem.)

It seems Levi notices it at exactly the same time from Hannes’ shifted position, as he stiffens and Eren can almost hear the scathing remark that would leave his teeth _(“you’re a fucking idiot, what makes you think he would be someone to trust?”_ ) and he glances over again and yet once more

the corporal’s mouth is firmly sealed.

It’s obvious that the soldier won’t help him out of his own fuckup unless it endangers them and it’s relieving to see he hasn’t spoken up yet, though it is embarrassing to have such a conversation in front of him ( _because he knows I’ve failed, but it’s another thing for someone to say it out loud. Even if he doesn’t care,_ ) and the apathy might almost roll off him in waves.

It’s disturbing to think that his inner critic has become Levi himself, but the idea is less disconcerting than the possibility that he’s his _conscience,_ because that’s simply terrifying.

Eren begins to unclasp the cloak.

The way Levi glances at him is quick and sharp and Hannes has been following their gazes with his own eyes, an odd look on his face, but he quirks an eyebrow at Eren as his hands move.

The cloth falls to the floor with a _thump._

“Ah,” says Hannes, because the patch emblazoned on the breast of his jacket answers enough questions. The Wings of Freedom, and he would be proud be this any other situation. Any other time. Because he’s here for a reason, and the reason has done its best to eat away at him in the corners of his mind in the minutes that have passed since the conversation with Hanji, four sets of ten, eight of five.

“What do you know about my mother?” he asks, in a tone that’s quiet. Controlled. Focused. Belies the hammering of his heartbeat in his mouth, faster faster fast as a rabbit’s.

Hannes heaves a sigh that’s as heavy as his shoulders and what looks like the weight of the world on them, and he raises a hand to his face to pinch the bridge of his nose. The frown is carved in stone.

“So,” he says. “You know.”

“Damn right I know,” he can’t stop himself from nearly snarling, and he’s been rude to Hannes plenty of times in his life but it’s been years since he’s overstepped the bounds like this. He can’t bring himself to care. “What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you weren’t ready to know,” he says flatly, and it derails Eren’s building rampage – he bites down hard on his tongue, so hard he tastes blood for a moment ( _but that won’t be a problem for long, now, will it_ ), reins himself in.

His voice is quiet. “Why?”

Hannes laughs but it’s humorless. “You’d have had the same reaction, but with more hitting and more denial.” He turns then to Levi, who had held his tongue through the entire exchange – and respectfully snaps off a military salute, a fist to the heart and his other arm barring his lower back.

“Sir, I apologize for not being a better host. Something to drink? Tea? Vine?”

“Don’t worry about it,” the corporal responds, and it’s mild, _so_ unexpectedly mild that it almost gives Eren a stroke to hear it coming from his mouth. Side-eyeing the teen, though, the man in question raises an eyebrow at the undoubtedly strange expression on his face. “As stupid as it sounds, the words this brat’s got for you are shit I need to hear too. I’m his designated babysitter, on orders from the pigs up in Mitras.”

_Mitras?_

Apparently Levi can sense his confusion, because grey eyes flick to Eren immediately after the statement. “The Capital’s got lots of names. Mitras, the Inner District – whatever sounds the grandest.”

Hannes laughs at that. “Looks like you’re getting a regular old education from Humanity’s Strongest,” he jibes with an eyebrow raised knowingly.

Eren at least has the grace to look embarrassed, but the humor is lost on the lance corporal’s current mood. He folds his arms and leans back against the wall. “We need to be on our way ten minutes ago,” he says, and it sobers up the both of them. “So whatever beans you’ve got to spill, I’d appreciate you spill them faster.”

“Right,” Hannes replies, looking pained – and it’s not like Eren to forget just how close he and his mother had been. It’s easy to tell that thinking of her has got its thorns for him, too.

But it’s beyond Eren right now to have any sympathy, because it’s seven years of lies Hannes has kept with a grin and how might this have been different? If he’d known, could he have been successful in getting his friends out of the Capital?

If he’d known…

“I don't know much,” he confesses. "I didn’t know what Carla’s Talent was. I knew what she told me – and that’s when I watched her slip and cut her own finger off.”

The thought makes Eren wince automatically, and he grits his teeth.

“That I wasn’t ever to tell Eren,” Hannes continues, glancing at him. “No one, but most of all Eren.”

“But she –“ What he intends to say is _died_ but his voice gets caught in his throat, he chokes on the word and can’t seem to spit it out. But the smith seems to understand well enough, shaking his head almost ruefully.

“I don’t know who they are, but they knew who they were dealing with. They held her down and severed the back of her neck with an axe.” Maybe Eren would notice Hannes’ eyes were squeezed shut if he looked anywhere else but the floor, but the tips of his boots are what’s keeping his nausea at bay. He can’t think about this – can’t talk about this – and yet –

If he doesn’t, this… this _gift_ won’t help him at all. He won’t know how to defend himself and then none of this –

None of this would have meant anything.

(It’s still gratifying, albeit in a sickening way, to know how to finish himself off.)

 

 

 

There’s something he feels is missing from what Hannes tells them, some little factor he’s still aching to understand but he isn’t sure what it is, as he dons his cloak again with the backs of his eyes giving a telltale burn. He can’t quantify it, but this part of him still feels alien; why would his mother have hidden it from him? And _how?_

_How did he not know?_

He’s sure it isn’t necessary but to be safe Levi extracts from Hannes an oath not to tell anyone he’d spoken to them here; Eren still doesn’t _get it,_ and he’s sure he doesn’t understand a lot of what runs through the soldier’s head.

But it would be nice to. To try to.

And even if there’s no words to be shared, nothing more and nothing less than a long, silent look shared between Eren and the man whom he could call ‘uncle’ if it meant more to him than ‘mentor’. Even if Levi doesn’t comment on the way Eren pulls his hood up further than it needs to go when they leave the house, bathed in sunset light, though he’s sure he understands why –

Even if there’s nothing spoken, he at least understands this.

The silence isn’t oppressive, the way it weighs down on him and the lance corporal matching him stride-for-stride at his right.

It’s _comforting._

Comforting like the way Levi wordlessly takes the lead, when he can’t know and can’t see that there are tears leaking from the corners of Eren’s eyes but knows it all the same.


	8. Apocalypsis, Part the Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It tastes something like blood and sorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LITERALLY FINISHED THIS FIVE MINUTES AGO HERE WE GO LOL
> 
> Bertholdt gets promoted to viewpoint character. Holla holla.
> 
> I wrote about half of this chapter in one sitting upon realizing that if I didn't get it done by tonight, it wouldn't be out for a while, given that Lightning Returns releases in the US in just a few hours. So I hope it's not too bad of a rush job.
> 
> But I couldn't stare at it any longer. I feel like I didn't do this chapter justice at all, but I do await your reactions to the events herein.
> 
> I can't say anything further, other than that this chapter is BY FAR (by about 33%) the longest chapter of the fic currently; it clocks in at approximately 12,776 words, beating the last record by one heck of a landslide.
> 
> I'm so hecking pumped, man. We're finally getting to the parts I conceived at the very outset of this fic.
> 
> OH GOD I ALMOST FORGOT - TRIGGER WARNINGS HEREIN for self-harm, suicidal thoughts and intent, and implied rape.
> 
> I'm so sorry.
> 
> ... but even so, please. Enjoy.

Bertholdt has not, is not, and will never be a heavy sleeper. But it still takes him moments to stir to wakefulness in the early hours of the morning, darkness shrouding the room, awakened by something he cannot put a finger on.

He pulls the thin barracks blanket closer to himself though it will not touch his chin (it is too short to cover much beyond the middle of his chest) and rolls to his other side, and that’s when he figures out what had woken him.

The other members of their squad have gotten used to them sharing a bed, hadn’t once made implicating comments but the strange glances are, at least, lessening; it doesn’t really fit the both of them, this tiny cot, but it’s more desirable than the alternative. It isn't much of a surprise to him, then, in that regard, when he turns over to see the broad expanse of Reiner's bare back; ridged and pockmarked by shadow and scar, it is easy for him to discern the tension in the set of his shoulders and the curve of his spine.

For a moment he thinks to run his fingers over the white, ropy scar lacing down the back of his shoulder, parallel to his spine, but instead he sleepily lifts himself onto his forearms in lieu of sitting up proper. “Reiner?” he murmurs, watching with concern the way his companion’s muscles tense at the sound of his name.

He sees that tension also in the way Reiner turns to him, slowly, as if afraid that by moving quickly he will startle someone; but he grows more awake every second and it becomes evident in the way Bertholdt’s eyebrows immediately knit together, presented with his face.

The rims of his eyes are red and they never speak of this in the daylight, but the curtain of night still rests upon the world, so Bertholdt sits up proper.

“Dream?” he whispers, very quietly, and he’s nervous – yet again – though _this, this_ is normal, even if they don’t dream of what’s expected, dire wolf jaws and harpy claws and fiery horns of an efreet.

The way Reiner stares at him with hollowed-out eyes is answer enough and Bertholdt’s hands move before he really thinks about it, fingers trailing over the ridges of the young man’s shoulder blades until his thumbs find the back of his neck. 

The shuddering sigh that leaves the blond man is worth more to Bertholdt than a few more hours of sleep, a few more hours of security, but as he works out the knots of tensed muscles, he thinks he could never say anything about it.

 

 

 

 

When they step in the front door, hoods in hand and stepping cautious, they are greeted by a row of relieved smiles.

“You’re back,” Petra is the first to say, tucking a lock of auburn hair behind an ear with one hand and stirring her tea with the other, a small metal spoon held between her fingers. “Welcome back, Eren, Corporal Levi.”

Eren does not miss the way the curl of her lips draws in when she looks to him, but it is minuscule, hardly visible if it isn’t sought after; it is a stark contrast to earlier in the afternoon when she had been tense at best and terrified at worst. _How long have we been gone?_ he thinks, that her worry for them has overcome her evident misgivings about –

What? About what he _is_? Is that it? It would be if he stood in her shoes, that’s true, but still...

_He looks better._

The thought, errant, wings past his awareness like a bird his eyes can’t quite follow and Eren blinks, stares at the female soldier who takes a sip of her tea, gaze set on the lip of the cup. Not looking at him and yet those words had been crystal clear –

When he deigns to look up and around, Eren notices the rest of the Special Operations Squad sitting around the small table near the edge of the tiny foyer of the inn; Auruo stares into a mug of coffee with an odd look on his face while, on his other side, Erd and Gunther speak quietly with Levi.

Their squad leader, he knows remembers but often forgets to understand, because there’s an entire set of soldiers standing behind Levi’s shoulders and sometimes he gets too wrapped up in himself to remember that there’s people, a world outside of his own issues.

Unsure what else to do, Eren slides the cloak off his shoulders.

 

 

A few feet away Levi eyes his movement out of the peripherals of his vision, cold steel irises flicking to the side and if his soldiers notice the way his attention seems to be split between the status update he had asked after and the young man under his charge – then, at least both of them have the tact not to say anything about it, even if the corner of Gunther’s lip might have twitched up just a bit.

 

 

“We leave in two hours.”

The statement makes Eren turn at the same time that Petra’s face falls, Auruo’s shoulders stiffen, Erd sits back in his chair and Gunther half-rises out of his. The startled fragments of words they gasp come one after the other like sputtering raindrops:

“Corporal –“

“But Maria District –“

“- at _night?_ ”

The last sudden outburst comes from Eren, who bites down on his lip immediately afterward when Levi’s eyes snap to him, rather than to Petra whose lips press together in a thin line, eyes wide, or to Gunther who looks sufficiently cowed, nervous, after the accidental interruption.

The air in the room is terse – or, rather, it remains so until Auruo takes a loud swig of his coffee, thumps the mug back down on the table and leans back.

“Ain’t a problem,” he says, smirking to himself. “Don’t see what you idiots are all scared of –“

“ _Auruo._ ” Petra’s stern look quiets him, unusual in that he would continue to rile her up – yet he can’t quite meet her gaze, looks away with a haughty air that belies terror that Eren can _feel_ like a band around his chest and then he understands. Understands the man’s bravado.

Because out there – at night, beyond Trost which sleeps fitfully behind a hundred Garrison soldiers that do not, that table their lives because –

out there is Death stalking the plains. Out there is no patrols and no civilization, and it’s a fate they knew of, these seasoned soldiers when they became the Special Operations Squad – but it’s different when you stare down the teeth and the jaws and the man you follow orders you to ride straight at them.

“Why?” he asks quietly, doesn’t look at anyone, most of all Levi as he speaks, only the wood of the table he stands beside, because he’s the only one who will. He’s the only one with the naïveté – or perhaps the guts – to question Levi’s decisions and that is what sets him apart from them.

He isn’t a soldier no matter how he pretends. 

Levi glances to him for just a moment before he speaks to the rest of his squad.

“The situation’s changed,” he says, by way of explanation. “We’ve been ordered to keep our movements secret.”

He avoids the words _we’re being watched_ and it’s that realization that prompts the way Eren looks at him, confusion in his eyebrows, even as Gunther and Petra share a look – because that doesn’t seem right. Was he told differently? Had something changed?

Had Levi entrusted him with more of the explanation?

“Leave Trost to the north and circle around, crossing into Maria over the plain,” Erd says, without inflection, drawing the gazes of his comrades; he then looks up at the corporal. “Is that what you’re proposing, sir?”

Levi inclines his head. “It’s a risk we’re forced to take.”

The room falls silent. It stands in high contrast, though their voices had been hushed to begin with, given the semipublic – if empty – space in which they are situated; it had never left the awareness of the squad, the openness of their surroundings.

“What would you have us do, Corporal Levi?”

Petra’s voice is small, but her eyes are sharp and focused; only the tightness of her white knuckles belies her nervousness, the tension in her frame. She is a soldier through and through, with bones of steel and nerves of tensile wire, bend and bend but never break.

Levi folds his arms, the traveling cloak draped over one of them, his fingers creasing folds in his white shirt; his expression is stony.

“Erd, Gunther.”

Neither responds visibly at his indication.

“In thirty minutes, you will saddle your horses and ride out of Trost as a pair. Don’t rush or look nervous. Take the main road. Leave through the North Gate, ride a half a mile due north and stop.”

Both soldiers nod, accepting the instructions without a word to question or clarify; it is straightforward enough, and they will accept it.

“Petra, Auruo.”

Petra nods while Auruo remains without reaction, besides maybe a tightening of the lines at his lips.

“Thirty minutes later, you will do the same.”

“Yes, sir,” Petra affirms quietly; the man she sits beside echoes her words, albeit even more quietly, and both she and Eren nearly glance to him in surprise.

Eren, at least, manages to keep his expression schooled into place as he looks at Levi – he’s not been given orders yet and he’s sure that’s deliberate, thinks it likely means he will be partnered with his soldier, as if he trusts no one else to keep an eye on him.

(He isn’t sure whether the thought makes him feel warm or angry, and perhaps it’s a bit of both.)

“Eren,” Levi says evenly, then, and he manages to smother the reaction to the lance corporal using his first name. The nod he gives is barely that, merely a twitch of his head.

His gray eyes are sharp as steel and he might cut a thumb on them. “You will help each pair saddle up,” he says first, and Eren is surprised, but if he’s retained nothing else he knows that that tone means Levi isn’t finished.

“You’ll then report back to me.”

And that’s the end of it, evidenced by the way he turns away. And he _knows_ that Levi’s deliberately not giving him his full orders, though he isn’t sure why; the rest of the squad doesn’t seem to notice, occupied with their own orders. That, or their control is such, their obedience is such that whatever misgivings they have about the next few hours are easily shrouded.

When the four senior members of the squad file out of the small dining room minutes later, Petra looks back at Eren with wide brown eyes that sing concern, once she’s sneaked a glance at Levi to be sure he isn’t looking her way, and in the irises he sees the answer.

There’s a moment of long slow silence in which Eren chooses not to follow the rest of the – _his --_ squad, instead watching the door click closed behind Petra; Levi is ignoring him in favor of the tea he’s procured from somewhere, steaming past his fingers (he holds the mug by its rim, once again), so he looks up when the moment the latch clicks Eren rounds on him.

“What are you keeping secret from them?” he hisses out, careful to keep his voice low – the wooden walls of the small dining room are thin though the doors are closed, and Eren’s knuckles go white, clenching his fists to avoid slamming them down on the table because it might piss him off, the way Levi tiptoes around everyone while speaking blandly and bluntly with that damned straight face of his, but somewhere he’s got a bent for self-preservation potent enough to warn him against picking that fight.

The way Levi looks through him rather than at him, in his response, is disquieting, more so the longer it continues; but after about six seconds when Eren shifts uneasily he rises from his seat, looks away, and leaves the room without looking back.

There's confusion etched in delicate don't-make-that-face lines in his mouth and his eyebrows, but no one tells him to brush them away.

(Small puffs of steam shiver in the air when his hand moves to brush against the back of the chair Levi had left just slightly askew, straightening the angle without a conscious thought.)

 

 

 

 

That chasm yawns in gaping teeth and quieted breath.

 

 

 

 

“Here,” he says, hoisting the last pack up to Gunther who sits astride his horse; he slings it across both shoulders, the straps causing the green Scouting Legion cloak to ridge and buckle, with a nod and a smile of thanks.

He’s armed. They both are; Erd’s got his spear hanging on his back from left hip to right shoulder and beyond, juxtaposed against his stiff spine and that of his horse, reins tight in hand and his steed pawing at the hard-packed dirt irritably, waiting to be on their way. In contrast, Gunther’s axe dangles from his belt, the shaft positioned finely enough that it won’t thump against his leg with every step.

Clearly they have done this before, the suiting up and riding off to battle (real or possible), and that puts Eren’s worries a little to rest as he steps back, looks over the horses’ stalls once to make sure nothing is missing; he knows they are built to handle uncertainties but these are the people who’ve become his _friends_ and he still doesn’t have an accurate reading as to what he should be afraid of –

But he thinks, watching the pair raise their hands to him and saluting back as they canter around the side of the building, down the alley and towards the street, that he’s almost certainly underestimating the skills and talents of the Special Operations Squad.

 

 

 

 

It’s fifteen minutes later and he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, staring down at his hands; everything he’s got left, in terms of belongings, is gathered in a small pack someone picked up for him today which sits beside the door. The bed is made with precision, the threadbare blanket on top bleached a soft gray by the moonlight streaming in the window.

That same light paints a strip of his leg blinding white, glitters off the metal buckles and fasteners; but not off the twin tanks and wire suspension system of his set of maneuver gear, which lays cradled in a dip of the mattress behind him.

The almost meditative stupor he finds himself lulled into by the steady sound of his own breath and the silence besides is rattled when the brush of knuckles, feather-light but loud in the quiet, on his door emits a sound.

“Eren,” comes the call, soft and light in pitch, grim in tone. “It’s time.”

 

 

 

 

The smile on Petra’s lips is worn thin in the way it wavers when she thinks he isn’t looking, following her a step to the right and a step behind down the hallway. It isn’t as if she and Auruo can’t handle saddling up their own horses, but she out of everyone will ensure Levi’s orders are followed to the letter – and though Eren still doesn’t know what to think on that topic he will at least cooperate.

Yet. She looks uneasy and it’s a far cry from Erd’s sternness and Gunther’s quiet calm.

“Petra –“ he starts to ask, unsure what he’s doing with the words because he just wants to _know_ if she doubts like he does, nerves are showing in the way her neck strains and her eyes flick to him and back away and maybe if he isn’t the only one –

“I will follow his orders,” she interrupts, and it’s quiet but firm, a little unlike her – or is he just unused to seeing that steel? She is _patient_ in a way no one else is, trusts (perhaps not blindly as he’d assumed) and understands better than he understands her, than he understands anything.

She turns to him just barely, the ends of her hair falling below her jaw, the quirk of her mouth a little brighter. “If you can’t trust the corporal, Eren,” she says, “trust _us._ ”

Eren stops, his mouth hanging open to respond; but he’s taken aback at the way she’s read him, as if she knows the thoughts in his head and the words, the question he was about to ask – and he thinks that he would like to know that too, but he’s never been good at reading people, a little too short in the empathy department but he still _wants_ to.

Because... do they know? Does she know that –

_\- the lance corporal is hiding something from us. But I trust him to make the right decision._

Petra is looking at him in concern when he reels back, jerks back as if burned; it takes two, three blinks to reorient himself to the narrow, dark hallway in which he stands. The smell of the smoke from the oil lamp set in the wall two feet forward, the way the light it casts burnishes the wood panels to their sides and beneath their feet.

Eren swallows sharply and shakes his head. “Okay,” he says. 

He feels anything but.

 

 

 

 

Auruo is standoffish as usual, but much quieter and less aggressive than he would normally act towards Eren; they give each other a wide berth, but it’s less out of antagonism than it is cordiality. Because Auruo can handle himself, he works best alone, and it seems Levi’s put Eren here for pure posturing. His help is neither wanted nor accepted, but Petra is keen and kind enough to keep him busy for the minutes he spends in the stable for the second time, hands tangled in the mane of Petra’s horse to keep him calm as she readjusts his tack and saddlebags to make sure everything hangs parallel.

Mina is in the next stall and she looks at him with round, dark eyes, as if jealous of the way Eren runs his hands through the stallion’s brown hair. He’s a little flighty when it comes to people working around him and that’s why Petra’s told him to do this, to talk to him low and soothing while she attends to her horse’s burdens.

It’s helpful to him, too, he thinks. It’s a little bit of physical relaxation to contrast the whirlwind in his head at the moment as he struggles to put pieces together, a little off-balance from the small revelation he’d just had inside; because of this it takes him a moment to realize Petra’s speaking to him, and he jolts with a “huh?” when she leans around the side of her horse and waves at him.

“That should be it,” she says, looking much more confident than he feels. There’s been no word and no alarm in the half hour since Erd and Gunther had left, and that’s the best they can be hoping for, given the situation… still. Maybe he’s overthinking the implicit danger in this operation, but there’s too many things he doesn’t know for him to be able to properly relax.

For instance. What happens if they’re _caught?_

Is it a conviction of treason? Discharge? _Execution?_

(For a moment there he wonders if he would stand a chance surviving something that wasn’t a beheading – it makes him ill. He drops the thought like something hot in his hands, searing his flesh.)

“Auruo?” Petra asks, glancing over to her companion, standing, waiting, much as Erd had for Gunther; perhaps Levi sees these natural pair dynamics, and perhaps that’s why he groups them the way he does – because while they all look out for each other, there’s a certain closeness that few of them share.

Auruo’s not facing her, instead staring ahead with his shoulders squared and his bow, strung, hanging on his back alongside his quiver. But Eren thinks, privately, that maybe he does this so he won’t have to look back.

As Petra presses her heels to her horse’s flanks, leading him out of the stall, she glances down to Eren with a look, deep, dark in her eyes like a cloudy stream that he can’t see the bottom of.

“Be careful,” she says after a long moment. And he nods, twisting to snap off a salute.

But she isn’t done. The next words she says, she says low enough that Auruo couldn’t possibly overhear, already beginning to move forward as he is.

“Look out for the corporal,” she beseeches him, and he looks up at her in surprise – Levi will hardly need someone to look out for him, he almost thinks to say, but the urgency in her expression gives him pause, and he holds the words under his tongue.

And maybe she sees that surprise in his face. “Please,” she whispers, and there’s a strange look in her eyes, haunted, like she’s looking past him or through him – but then she blinks and it’s gone. 

Eren maintains the salute, fist curled over his heart, until Petra’s back – the Wings of Freedom partially obscured by the crossbow she carries – disappears green-cloaked around the corner.

 

 

 

 

As he makes his way back inside, he trails his fingers along the sides of the wall in the dark hallway, leading himself inside through the back hall with quieted steps; the inn is almost silent, apart from the soft sound of someone speaking several rooms away, someone he doesn’t know – that is the downfall of a public inn, but it’s that foresight that ensures they have a chance to escape this snare.

Why it has been laid, though, is the question. Seeing as – if he remembers that day in the throne room as best he can, straining to recall the words – they’re under the King’s orders to make it to Shinganshina.

So why, then, would the men under his command be making to hold them back in Trost? Of course something must have changed, that much is certain, but what would make it imperative that they didn’t so much as reach Maria District? – And why, as a soldier in the Scouting Legion, was Levi continuing to lead them forward?

He’s got inklings of ideas, but they’re half-formed phantasms when maybe Armin could piece them together into something cohesive, an actual guess, but he’s not able to form these concepts into puzzle pieces or metal bits that he can fit together in a physical design.

Eren’s always been better with his hands than he has been at riddles.

The quietude and the dark lend themselves well to his musings, and he remembers the few hours he’d lost under Hanji’s and Levi’s watch days ago. He doesn’t exactly like to think about it – the bit, especially, where he had outright fainted for no conceivable reason – but it does stand out that his soldier and the scientist had been corresponding so frequently without the knowledge of their respective squads.

Is there something they have to hide? – And what had the paintings had to do with it?

It has a reek of illegality to it and it makes him nervous. Not that he has any love for the monarchy, but there is still something afoot that he’s not understanding and it seems like he’s a part of it. Else, why would Levi have dragged him around like a dog throughout these last few days?

It’s not that he’s _dangerous –_

Well, he muses. That’s not necessarily true. 

(The thought still raises a wave of unease, and he looks down at his hands, barely visible in the gloom, as if they aren’t his – and for a moment, one terrifying long moment, he thinks _They aren’t mine. I need to – get them **off -**_ )

 

 

 

 

He blinks hard, two or three times, struggling to regain his bearings; something hard presses against his forehead and he pushes back, realizes he’s leaning face-first against the hallway wall. 

Eren isn’t sure how he got there or what happened to the seconds in between, the ones just before, and that makes him the most nervous out of anything.

 

 

 

 

He manages to make it back to his room without incident, closing the door softly behind himself and stepping towards his bed, the heels of his boots making quiet clicks against the wood.

When he drops his head into his hands he feels like it might crack open in them, the thoughts inside whirling so quickly he can’t keep track of them, and it _pisses him off_ how little control he’s had over keeping things straight in the last few weeks, he’s _sick_ of not understanding what the fuck is going on, and –

“Damn it,” he spits, and it sounds hoarse to his ears and he wonders if this is what panicking feels like.

It’s his turn next and there’s a chance he could die tonight (a small one, at that, but it is still there) and he doesn’t even know why.

What would it take to get some goddamned answers out of Levi? Instead of the man staring at him as if he’s seeing a ghost, as if Eren isn’t there at all? Probably some kind of mind-reading –

There’s a thought.

What had he done to Petra tonight? Even earlier, when he had chalked up those strange sounds to some kind of drowsiness – Levi in Hermiha – the guard in the Capital?

Wait, what the _fuck?_ he thinks, and then his teeth come together when a few pieces of that puzzle do too.

“Holy _shit,_ ” he says, and that one’s a hair louder than his last statement but he rubs his palms into his temples and doesn’t notice, feels instead the way his skin and bones feel fragile in his hands and how he can tell there’s a good, strong headache coming on.

Can he _do_ that? Is that a thing that he can do – hear thoughts, or however the fuck it’s manifesting?

Is that some other twisted little _ability_ he’s picking up as he goes along, edging further and further from human with each night that passes? And if so, how long until he’s _not_ anymore – because he still feels fine, but that he’s _alive_ points out a lot because he really shouldn’t be. He really, really shouldn’t, and it’s a little fucked up how he kind of doesn’t want to be if this is the alternative, and the _urge_ he gets is sudden and he acts before he can stop himself.

He realizes it doesn’t hurt as much as it should when he starts to taste blood, sinking his teeth into the round flesh of the base of his thumb far far and far enough that he can feel the squish of muscle and sinew and it doesn’t make his stomach roll like he thinks it’s supposed to and _that_ thought is clear to him, crystal clarity and that’s when he jerks back.

A second later he’s staring at his hand in disbelief, watching the holes where his teeth had been grow smaller and smaller, the tiniest trail of what looks like some kind of steam rising from them in sinuous lines. 

“Oh, _fuck,”_ he whispers, quietest and most uncertain of all.

 

 

 

 

Contrary to his orders it’s actually Levi who comes to find him, his things in hand, coming upon a silent Eren staring at the wall across from him alone in his room and beckoning him outside with the jerk of his head.

He follows the order wordlessly, feeling as if he’s not there, nonexisting in that moment but the movement required to stoop and pick up his pack stirs the stagnant blood in him that begins to flow again.

“Here,” the corporal says suddenly, holding out some kind of fabric – the traveling cloak from earlier. Eren glances up, bent over as he is, and his eyes almost cross at how closely it hangs to his face; he accepts it gratefully and throws it around his shoulders, though, because that choice of Levi’s is one that makes sense to him.

Wordlessly they move down the dim hallway, no sound but their steps and the occasional metallic bump-scrape of their maneuver gear, their swords, or both. Levi leads the way and so Eren stares at the back of his head while he walks, fairly certain they will be following in the footsteps of his squadmates earlier though technically he’s been given no orders.

He wonders where they are and if they’re safe, if they’d encountered any difficulties on the way out of Trost; Levi probably thought to play on the general acceptance of Scouting Legion members going out on patrol in pairs, arranging the less recognizable members of his squad into sets of two and sending them out that way; that’s as far as Eren can figure, though, besides their cloaks being to cash in on the ruse that’s been perpetrated since that morning.

Maybe if he knew _what_ they were running from, though…

The thoughts cause his steps to drag and Levi turns back after a moment, looking vaguely irritated and on the edge of saying something that’s certain to be scathing to urge him to move faster –

but he goes stiff in surprise when Eren, moving forward suddenly, wraps his hands around Levi’s forearms and screws his eyes shut.

It takes him a moment or two to get over the surprise and narrow his eyes. “Yeager,” he says, false calm and in a warning tone, “what the fuck are you doing?”

(But he doesn’t pull away, though the folds of the sleeves of his jacket dig into his arms with the tightness of Eren’s grip. The thought never really crosses his mind.)

Eren looks disappointed and confused when his eyes blink open, but that doesn’t soften Levi’s sharp look. “Care to share with the class,” he says, drier than a rind of bread and the crisp tone is what makes the corner of Eren’s mouth twist when he finally looks at Levi, finally lets go. 

“… Sorry,” he mutters, belatedly, doesn’t make eye contact with the corporal – who looks at him strangely for a moment, out of the peripherals of his vision, before letting out a sigh and a shake of his head.

 

 

   
  


 _It didn’t work,_ he’s still thinking when he puts his heels to Mina’s flank, gently at first as she gets acclimated once again to him on her back. He gnaws his lower lip, guiding her out of the stall, forward to where Levi waits for him. _It didn’t work._

Is it because he’s trying to force it? Is he not doing it properly? If it’s a Talent, he _should_ be able to exercise some control over it – right?

(But if so, would he be able to heal the way he does…?)

There’s a lot of things to theorize about and theory has never been his strong point. He kind of wishes he had Hanji to ask, but she –

“Corporal,” he says suddenly, draws a sharp glance from the man before him. _Shit,_ he’s not supposed to use names, or titles, or anything, he remembers suddenly, but the wince is obscured by his cloak and hood. “Is Hanji’s squad coming with us?” he continues to ask, much more quietly.

“No,” he responds, and it’s a curt statement, as if he doesn’t want to elaborate, or as if it’s the wrong space; the latter is definitely true, but Eren’s enough on edge that an answer without an explanation isn’t going to put him at ease, and he won’t settle for anything shy of the truth – and though he’s smarter than that, the cautions he should have don’t pass through the murk that is his head fast enough to silence his words.

“Why not?” he whispers, edging Mina up as far as he can get her to stand, nearly caught between the flank of Levi’s black stallion (a much bigger horse than his) and the stonework wall they ride beside. “Didn’t Commander Erwin –“

“Shut _up, Yeager,_ ” Levi hisses sharply and he recoils from the sheer acid in his tone. “Not here, dumbfuck. Bother me later if you can’t get the stick out of your ass, but now isn’t the best –“

Both their heads snap back, Eren reacting to something that he can’t distinguish at first, until it happens a second time.

Footsteps.

“Up,” Levi whispers, head cocked back, watching the rooftops.

… There. Sure enough, the sound of padding steps rattles just-too-loud on the terra-cotta shingles, and Eren’s heart beats in his throat fast enough that he might choke, frozen by the sound, watching the horizon.

A single shingle, dusty orange in the dark, comes loose under a shadowy too-black spot that might be a foot, slides along the rooftop with a skittering noise – shoots off the edge, clatters against the wall, and shatters against the floor of the alley.

“ _Go,_ ” Levi growls, just shy of the moment when all hell breaks loose.

The sounds of their hooves beating against the cobblestones nearly drowns out the scattered shouts, a yell of “Stop them!”, a sudden whooshing noise that has Eren ducking down flush to Mina’s neck – what the fuck, was that an arrow?

He feels remorse for the way he drives his heels deep into her sides but she leaps into action, Eren rising up in his stirrups but bending close to his horse as she gallops around the corner, into the wider street, empty in the darkness – but up on the roofs are a plethora of running forms, and from the streets ahead come people surging towards them, the moon glinting off reflective steel, lances, swords, even plate and chainmail armor at some point.

 _Where’s Levi,_ he thinks, but has no time to look – ahead they’re looking to close ranks, force him back, so he flicks Mina’s reins again, pushes her _faster faster_ and there’s another yell and another and a whiz of an arrow flying just before his face but the way his blood runs hot in his veins makes him unflinching, immovable.

He will not quail. He will not flee, and he’s got to haul ass _now_ while the chaos reigns.

The first soldiers – there’s something like twenty lining two-deep down the road he thinks at a glance but can’t be certain, it’s all moving too fast – lower their spears and it looks like he’ll dash himself and his horse against them but when he pulls up at the reins rather than back she knows what he means and what he’s asking and there’s a _slam_ of his weight rocking back as Mina’s hindquarters bunch up, gathering under her

and then they’re airborne, the horse leaping clean over the row of soldiers all on foot and he collides with her neck, driving the breath from his lungs but they’re _alive_ for now and she knows enough, understands enough from frenzied shouts to keep running, further down the road towards the gate.

It’s weird that there are no soldiers on horseback, to him, but the Legion’s horses are quicker anyway and they use them most –

 _Fuck,_ he thinks suddenly, twists in his saddle because he doesn’t see any soldiers ahead, _where’s Levi_ –

His massive horse could never leap the soldiers –

It’s hard to understand what he’s watching because one moment there’s a line of them, rose and unicorn emblems alike, and the next second they’re gone; pushed away by something unseen, a few even lifted off their feet and thrown like ragdolls and

the monster of a horse Levi owns pelts through the small gap, threading the needle, the soldiers’ responses too uncoordinated to be able to mount a counterattack before he’s through but

Eren thinks he’s never heard anyone yell louder in his life than he hears then when he somehow makes eye contact with his soldier at least a hundred yard back, sees the white rims of Levi’s eyes impossibly from this distance, and the corporal shouts _“EREN!”_

Then he’s turning and it’s just fast enough to throw his weight hard to the left, his saddle sliding against his horse’s back as a spear cleaves through the space he’d just been –

his horse keeps running forward and the soldier’s the opposite direction, cursing loudly as he regains a hold on his weapon but he isn’t quite _fast_ enough and

Levi’s got his sword in hand and he lashes out barely just quick enough as the man goes past, fumbling for control, dragging his blade through the bone and joint of his wrist and cropping his hand clean off.

 _“FUCK!”_ comes the blood-curdling scream and there’s shouting and chaos behind them but he’s got eyes only for his soldier who ducks close to his horse, the arm holding his blade held straight out horizontal yet and he can _see_ the blood, almost ink-black in the night, streaming off in cords and drops.

“Ride, damn  it!” he rasps as he catches up to – then passes – Eren, black hair askew with the speed at which they’re galloping, hood long since blown back; they haven’t escaped danger yet and he isn’t going to let up now, so he clicks his tongue at Mina again, urges her forward though she might start to flag soon – not a Legion horse but she’s his horse and she will get him through this, he knows.

The coast is seemingly clear and the gate yawns up before them, the portcullis open, less than fifty yards forward. It looks too simple and Eren at least isn’t sure what to make of it, lowers one hand to rest on the handle of the sword at his right hip, his left hand keeping himself balanced.

But it’s Levi that pelts through first, with no sign of resistance –

Till he reaches the other side, the open field beyond, and there’s a shout, a series of yells and the collective rasp of several weapons being drawn at once.

When Eren gets through he can’t believe what he sees.

Half of them have already been knocked off the backs of their horses, the others dazed and fumbling with their weapons – not the cream of the monarchy’s crop by any stretch of the imagination but what the _fuck_ had Levi done in the less than half a second that the wall had obscured his view?

But he sees the man ahead of him, following the road and he urges Mina even faster to catch up, not casting a glance back to the soldiers as they recover themselves – if they take the road they’ll be led directly to the rest of Squad Levi, so why don’t they split up?

He asks as much once he gets close that he can call it, voice cracking. “Corporal, should we –“

“No,” he cuts Eren off, knowing exactly what will be asked, looking over with what seems to be a glare but it’s more adrenaline if he can tell it right. “Keep following the road. If we split up you’ll get lost and I’ll never be able to find you.”

It’s a backhanded insult but that doesn’t explain why Eren feels like he just swallowed a quart of liquid steel burning too too hot in his stomach, turning away as something fiery creeps across his face. 

(He wouldn’t, first of all. And _second -_ )

 

 

 

 

They can’t have ridden far enough already but there they are, their horses lined alongside the road, the soldiers sitting still awaiting their appearance: Petra is the first to react, a flimsy “Corporal –“ escaping her at their disheveled appearances and intense expressions, Eren’s an unfocused look of seriousness and vague anger, Levi’s eyes hard and bright. 

“We’re under pursuit,” he says shortly and that’s all the direction they need, it seems, as the soldiers follow him when he swings off the road to the west not twenty yards away.

 

 

 

 

After an hour or so of hard riding, or so it seems, the moon is high enough in the sky to light the plain as far as they can see – emptiness on all four sides, only stretches of grass rising up and down in small degrees to allude to hills. Levi pulls on his horse’s reins to slow their pace, conscious of the foam accumulating at his bit, an action that is received with the quietest of relieved sighs that seems passed from one mouth to the next in its uniformity.

Eren catches Levi looking at him when he glances back down after a solid minute of gazing at the stars above them, and the young man looks away in embarrassment when the corporal says nothing but turns back to his horse. 

 _Stupid kid,_ he hears the thought, and it makes Eren’s insides tighten in a tumult of emotions, for a variety of reasons.

 

 

 

 

They don’t rest till moonset two hours later, and Eren keeps riding for a few feet before he realizes, plays it off as bringing Mina to circle around; he’s barely conscious, worn himself out mentally with trying over and over again to figure out how to read the thoughts of the people near to him. He’s got no idea how to make it happen under his control and that pisses him off, because if it’s something he never wanted, never asked for, and he can’t even _use_ it for anything – another thing marking him as something other than human existing only to make him even more miserable – then what’s the fucking _point_ anyway?

(Of course he’s a little peeved and disturbed that somewhere in there he may have, in an unlucky fluke, caught Auruo thinking lewd things involving Petra’s hair, but that’s a little irrelevant.)

But these thoughts stay firmly away from his mouth, in an impressive display of self-control because all he wants to do is spit something venomous and stomp around for a few minutes.

Nevertheless, when he dismounts, he thinks maybe Levi watches him for a few beats longer than normal, as if sizing up whether there’s anything wrong with him; he’s riled up enough that he might pick a fight for kicks if he weren’t so bone-dead tired, the weight of his limbs almost too much. So he settles for a sort of half-glare that suits his irritation just fine.

(Levi turns away from that rather quickly, and Eren never notices the reflection of predator-gold in steely gray.)

It’s a rest for the horses more than the riders, and none of them find themselves hungry, so they end up sitting in a loosely-formed circle for lack of anything else to do. In a red-eyed stupor, Eren pulls the cloak off his shoulders, the dust-brown fabric waving slightly in the tiny breeze that kicks up, and casts it over his legs as a makeshift blanket.

He realizes belatedly Levi sits nearest to him, though a distance away, and when he looks up the corporal is watching him; they make eye contact for a few beats beyond cordial and there’s something in Levi’s eyes that he can’t read, but he doesn’t get a chance to figure it out before the man speaks. 

“Squad Hanji will no longer be traveling with us.”

 

 

 

 

“What?”

It surprises Bertholdt, too, but not the way it catches Reiner like a slap upside the head, causing him to drop his cloak on the floor of their room in the barracks.

Hanji’s gaze moves from the pair of them, over Moblit standing with his shoulders square in the middle of the half-assed formation, glancing over Caroline and Mica and sweeping back.

( _Caroline Lange and Mica Doerfler_ , Bertholdt thinks automatically, a checklist of what he knows appearing in his mind like he’s learned to do, compiled of quiet observation. _Formerly of the 100 th Corps, four kills solo and twenty in a team for Caroline, seven solo, seven team for Mica -_)

“We’ve been called back to the Capital,” Hanji explains, looking serious, readjusting her glasses with one hand. “Erwin’s orders, as a result of the change in conditions.”

“Change in conditions?” Reiner parrots, but it comes out as a frustrated growl and her eyes snap sharply to him. Bertholdt watches it happen, just too far away that he can’t place his hand at the small of Reiner’s back and remind him of control; so, instead, he speaks softly, his fists still curled at attention though she’d told them to stand at ease thirty seconds ago.

“She means Eren,” he says, quietly, at a volume that he thinks only Reiner will hear but the sudden silence that falls means they all glance to him. (Since Bertholdt doesn’t speak often, it’s generally accepted that his are words of wisdom and that makes him swallow even more of his words because he hates that they trust him. He can’t _stand_ it, it makes him ill and he isn’t the only one who dreams of screaming people.)

“You spoke to him, didn’t you,” Hanji responds in kind, looking stoic though her tone is apologetic.

In response, Bertholdt only dips his head, feeling himself begin to sweat at the attention of his squad – even Reiner has turned to him and that makes his stomach turn, doesn’t want to look up to see the expression on his face because which one of them is it?

Is it the soldier or the warrior?

“I’m sorry,” Hanji says, and its sincerity makes him look up in surprise.

“Then it’s true,” Reiner rasps, shaking his head. “It’s so… I remember seeing him, you know? He seemed like an okay guy.”

“He was,” Hanji agrees, lips quirked in a sad mockery of a smile. 

Some of it doesn’t add up to Bertholdt – he feels sorry for what’s happened to Eren but what he doesn’t understand is what the rest of his squad is trying to get at. “You met with the lance corporal, Squad Leader? Are they still headed for Shinganshina?”

Hanji looks at him for a moment, then shakes her head. “They’re awaiting orders,” she elaborates. “That’s all I know.”

 

 

 

 

“I wonder why the Commander would do that,” Petra murmurs with a thoughtful frown. “They’ve been with us all through Rose, apart from –“

Eren doesn’t miss the way her gaze flicks to him and he knows that she’s referring to the incident in the forest, the one where he should have, honestly, _died._ He’s starting to get used to the way that thought sounds in his head, and he hates that he is.

“He’s up to something,” Levi responds, also thoughtful, and it sounds crisp but he thinks that’s just because he’s sensitive to that tone, now. “Can’t fathom what kind of shit goes on in his head. Crazy bastard, but a smart one.”

“He has to be, to earn your respect,” Eren finds himself saying under his breath, and he stirs in surprise at the closed-throat hum he earns in response, the corporal close enough to hear him – and close enough to agree, though he hadn’t meant to make the comment audible.

 

 

 

 

It hurts to saddle up again, once he’s made sure Mina’s saddle is on straight (the stunt he pulled leaving Trost knocked it a little askew, and it’d been sliding to and fro since), but he swallows any complaint that tries to bubble through his teeth, taking his reins in hand and bundling his cloak around himself once again. It’s not needed to hide his uniform, but it’s certainly warmer than going without, and if he’s got the resources he will damn well use them.

The gear strapped to his thighs and the back of his waist rattles as he gets himself settled back in, ends up in the front of the impromptu formation they fall into, abreast of Levi and in front of Petra; looking back over the squad he sees those pairs manifest again, something he didn’t but probably should have expected.

It makes sense, with the size of the Special Operations Squad. It makes _double_ sense, seeing as he’s the novice of them, and he’s the one placed under Levi’s charge.

The danger. The unknown variable.

Levi doesn’t look at him much through the next hour’s ride, though they must be drawing close to Maria District; he keeps his eyes firmly on the horizon, watching the bump and roll of the hills that stand as no obstacle to the horses they ride.

Quiet conversation is carried on behind Eren, though he doesn’t join in, torn between watching the clouds skate across the moon and the dip and wave of the wildgrasses in the breezes that run through them, like tides of water, silvery at the crest.

 

 

 

 

When they hit Maria he feels it like a physical blow, as if he hits a wall, and he nearly falls off his horse, a startled noise escaping him as he drops to her back.

“Eren?” Petra’s voice jumps up a few pitches from concern, pulling up beside him to see if he’s alright, but he waves away her assistance with a shaky half-smile and an equally shaky refusal.

And more than the discomfort of _entering,_ he finds it, strangely, almost a little difficult to keep air moving in and out of his lungs, as if there isn’t enough for him to breathe, or as if it’s impure. He toughs it out for five or six minutes but when the corners of his eyes start to go dark he swallows up his pride and glances over.

“Levi,” he rasps, forgets in that moment, in his dizziness, the correct titles, shaking his head. “I can’t –“ _cough_ “- can’t breathe.”

“In through your nose, out through your mouth, Yeager,” he responds automatically, almost hissed in response as if to keep the two soldiers behind him from hearing. “Like you’re running. You’ll get used to it.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, and the thank-you is implied when the fuzzy edges start to recede, his heart rate starts to slow from the frantic hammering to a more steady thrum.

“We’re in Maria now,” Levi says to his squad, leaning back but not turning back to address them proper. “That requires all of you be _awake_ lest we get fucked sideways by -“

Eren could almost laugh at the way the entire squad freezes almost comically when, from a copse of trees that’s popped up on the horizon, three or four dark figures burst with a bone-chilling screech, clear to interrupt Levi mid-sentence.

“- fucking harpies,” he nearly groans.

The tactic is to stay low as Petra and Auruo take potshots at them, and lash out at feet and wings whenever the damn creatures come close enough to hit – they can’t outrun harpies, but at least they’re limited to the talons on their birdlike feet in terms of weapons, which means it’ll stay close-quarters once they get close.

That tactic quickly goes to absolute shit at the next sound. A loud howl joins in with the furious screeching of the hideous bird-women flapping erratically towards them, and at _that_ even Erd swears colorfully, enough so that Eren can’t resist the glance back at him.

“Dire wolves,” someone calls – it’s Gunther, maybe, from the way he rises up in his saddle and looks as far as he can. “ – There’s _five._ ”

“Fucking _shitmongers_ ,” Levi swears, and Eren looks at him sharply.

“The trees?” he suggests, referring to their maneuver gear, and he sees the cogs turn in the corporal’s mind before he shakes his head, weighing the pros and cons of the tactic and deciding against it.

“Auruo, Petra,” Levi calls. “Take the harpies, I don’t care how many arrows it takes, just get them out of the air. Erd, guard their close quarters.” He pauses. “Gunther. Eren. With me – we’re going wolf hunting.”

“Sir!” the soldiers affirm, all in unison, and for once Eren’s voice joins theirs and it feels right. It feels like he belongs, and that gives him hope, gives him a twinge of trust in his comrades that rips through his veins like liquid silver, driving his heels into Mina’s sides and spurring her on even faster than Levi can keep up.

It’s unclear whether the wolves fall upon them or vice versa – more accurately it seems two waves crash together and blood rises up as foam and spray, Eren bringing both swords down on muzzles and napes near to him though Levi works twice as fast. Gunther, on the other hand, is a sight to behold; he handles his axe like it weighs nothing, spins it gracefully and brings it down in a cleaving blow that separates two segments of vertebrae at the neck of a dire wolf.

But the brawl, because that’s what it devolves into, is not without its cries of pain; Gunther emits a sharp one when jaws close around the back of his calf though his axe quickly remedies that, and – more nauseating to Eren – there’s a grunt of something that sounds like a pained curse from Levi’s direction more than once.

He is the lucky one though each wound still pains him unbelievably. An errant paw catches him upside the head at one point, knocks him silly for a moment though he’s lucky his arm follows through on the swing he’d been making, slashing the wolf across the face and muzzle, and clarity of vision is restored to him moments later when it might take a good man minutes.

Eren’s thankful they make quick work of the dire wolves and manage to stay on horseback the entire time, steeds escaping mostly unharmed, the monsters’ corpses and inky blood staining the wildgrass and beginning to fade away slowly but surely into wisps of black smoke even as they turn away and ride back towards their comrades.

(He doesn’t notice the way Levi’s right hand hangs limp, rivulets of blood running down and dripping from his fingers.)

Petra skewers the last harpy clean through the head with a one-handed bolt just as Eren pulls his horse up short, the last scream cut off to immediate silence as its body hits the earth with a wet thump.

They’re all breathing heavily but most are smiling, grins growing wider on Eren’s and Petra’s faces when they make eye contact, and Petra sets her crossbow to her back, slides off her horse to gather up the bolts and arrows she can find yet in the dark.

“Make camp in those trees,” Levi orders with a jerk of his head, indicating the harpies’ copse – now that they’re gone it’ll stay safe from other creatures encroaching on their territory, so it’s the safest place they can reach without risk of another conflict. Because they’re in Maria District now.

The monsters’ true territory.

As such there must be a pair on watch at all times lest they want to flirt with death to an obscenely intimate degree. Erd and Gunther draw first, which brings a smile to Gunther’s face when he breaks out his cloth and whetstone for his axe, while Eren and Levi end up on the third watch, just shy of sunup.

Resigning himself to a few hours of tossing and turning, Eren rolls out his bedroll a little bit away from the general congregation at the middle of the largest clearing, nestling closer to the trunks of the large trees. And though he’s physically tired enough to pass right out when his head hits the padded fabric, there’s too much rolling around in his head to allow him even that bit of marginal bliss.

What is he doing wrong, that he can’t figure out how to _control_ anything he can do? That it freaks him out shouldn’t be relevant to his technical ability, because it freaked him out when he was little that he could bend his elbow backwards and even so he could still do it. (Perhaps the logic is faulty, but it’s late enough that he doesn’t think hard about it.)

Still. What if, if he figured out how to get the reading thing working – what if he could pass that weird regeneration shit on, too? See if he could _heal_ someone? That’d be the epitome of useful; sure he can get himself in the middle of a shitstorm and basically turn out okay, but he’s not a good enough fighter that it’d really make that much of a difference.

 _Levi_ on the other hand…

What if he could use his Talent to watch the lance corporal’s back?

Eren rolls over and stares at a tree across the clearing.

What if?

That’d make _him_ a little bit more necessary, wouldn’t it? And maybe then he could work a little harder to earn his soldier’s respect, maybe even his _trust,_ because fuck knows if Levi trusts him as far as he can throw him at this point, Eren’s trust in him (misplaced or not) notwithstanding.

It was worth a shot…

Eren blinks a few times, his lashes fluttering, as he makes sense of what he’s seeing.

Across the clearing, a figure rises from their bedroll, looks around cautiously to ensure no one is watching, and slips into the woods beyond the encampment with cautious steps.

… What the hell?

He wants to assume it’s someone off to relieve themselves, but after two or three minutes the figure doesn’t return and then he starts to get a little concerned. Taking a quick tally of the people whom he can see in the clearing, Eren accounts for all of them but –

But for Levi, who must be the one who’d sneaked off under cover of night.

_What’s he up to?_

Maybe if he had learned to be a bit less nosy in his youth, a little more careful, he wouldn’t make the mistake of slipping out of his bedroll, hugging the treeline that encircles the camp, and slipping into the woods between the trunks that frame the way Levi had taken minutes ago.

But even so, even if he had learned better of himself, stepping gently and gingerly over brown pine needles and crunchy dry branches, the occasional huge feather from the harpies they’d evicted just tonight, he still thinks later that he would have ended up here, some way, somehow. Later he thinks something guides his footfalls, masks them in the quietude, that he can’t account for when he’s blinking away sleep.

But right now, he thinks only that he should have gone to bed when he got the chance, running his fingers along rough bark when he passes touch-close to the trees, because he's been conscious for far too long and soon he will start to get loopy, he's sure.

The first thing he hears is a grunt and a hiss of pain - the second a crunch of something that might be a pinecone underfoot, and that one is definitely his fault. He rocks his weight back to step out of sight but Levi looks up too quickly, freezes Eren in place with the intensity of his stare.

He's seated on a rock, knees splayed, cradling his right wrist between them; to his left he's got a makeshift bowl filled shallowly with water from a canteen, and to his right a bottle of what Eren thinks is alcohol.

The look of his wrist, though, is what drags the gasp out of him with rusty teeth.

It's almost mutilated, purple in some places and bleeding gashes in others vaguely shaped like teeth, though he's clearly cleaning and sanitizing the wound from the looks of the little station he's set up. Hardly effectively, given that his right hand is dominant -

After a long moment of silence, Levi rolls his eyes. "If you're going to stand around like a moron, Yeager, you may as well come help me," he veritably sighs in irritation that sounds almost fond and it's right then that Eren knows he should be asleep.

He shifts from one foot to the other slowly. "Sir, I -"

"Hurry the fuck up, Eren," he interrupts, indicating with a jerk of his head that he isn't joking.

"Yes, sir," he concedes, following the order with more politeness than he expected he'd display given his current general irritation with Levi himself. But he supposes that irritation doesn't necessary apply to injuries, especially serious ones, as he navigates the network of roots that threaten to catch his boots and knock him ass-up on the ground.

"Here," Levi instructs him, handing the bottle of what from the smell he figures out to be wine to him, telling him to pour the alcohol into each cut as best as possible because his left hand isn't steady enough to do it.

(His words. And when he says them he looks down, watches his fingers twitch, and understands the adrenaline crash he must be under too.)

When he does so, Levi hisses and tilts his head back, which might be intriguing in a different situation but is now just nerve-wracking.

"Sir -" Eren starts to apologize, hopes there's a better way to do this, but the shake of his head answers both of those.

"Keep going, Yeager," he almost rasps, and if the situation just before wasn't awkwardly arousing (oh good God he didn’t think that, why isn’t he _asleep_ ) then this one edges right on that fine line and he doesn't want to fuck this up because Levi's fucking wrist is broken, humanity's best weapon succumbs to a little wear and tear now and then but nothing like this.

"I'm going to try to heal it," Eren says suddenly, and that makes Levi's eyes snap open, staring above his head for a moment before he looks down at the young man, kneeling just outside of his legs.

"Can you do that?" he inquires, tone sharp but borderline - hopeful? Is that what he hears?

"Maybe," he responds, more certain than he himself even is but it still elicits a frustrated groan from the soldier who leans back again, against the tree, eyes closed tight - evidently in a whole lot of pain.

"Fine. But do it quickly."

He realizes abruptly just what kind of corner he's got himself backed into, because how many times did he try it with the mind thing today? Granted it's a little different, but he thinks the principle is the same.

It works from the inside. So somehow, he's got to get inside. – A weird thought, but it’s all he’s got to go off of.

Eren closes his eyes, Levi's wrist held gingerly between his hands; his fingers splay across the ridges of the wounds, feeling gently the pulse of blood through his veins and his injuries. His eyebrows furrow as he thinks hard on how to go about this, but then relax when he feels instead, feels his way along, trying to see inside, almost, the skin of the wound, muscle and sinew and cracked bone.

It's cold.

Very cold, unbelievably cold, and then it's burning hot and then it settles on a nice cozy warm and he’s

 

_opening his eyes and seeing the ceiling above, wooden and peaked like a cabin and he rolls over and pulls the blankets tight to himself, wants to go back to sleep, but there's a hand stroking through his black hair kneading at his scalp and it's then he's happy though he knows it can't and won't last long and it's_

_so cold when he remembers blankets but has just his arms to cast about himself like the flimsiest coat and it's dark, so dark, and he's ravenously hungry and his fingers are grimy and that makes him want to throw up because he hates it, the way it clings to his skin no matter how he tries to wash it off and he is_

_Alone_

_and no matter what kind of wind he can conjure up or call upon he is alone and he is cold bone-deep cold with grime on his skin and he just wants to be clean again because_

_he didn't ask for this, not for any of this and behind his eyes are blood-stained sheets and wide-staring eyes and in his ears are coarse lewd sounds of murderous men and the noise he makes when he starts to cry sounds like a coughing cat_

_and the strays in the alley seem to love it when he cries, he's lucky he does it so much and_

_\-- he's so sick so so weak --_

_// and he looks up one day and sees her with a face like the sun and hair like lightning and he doesn't smile back even when she benevolently hands him a torn off chunk of her loaf of bread, thanks her seriously and that makes her shoulders shake because "you're so stoic for a midget" and the small flare of irritation is accompanied by the tiniest gust, a whiff of air that blows her hair back from her face and he sees his wide eyes reflected in hers, except when she blinks, nods conspiratorially_

_"you too, huh?"_

_and there's fear sharp and real and winging past them in a breeze that kicks up dust when she wraps her fingers around his grimy wrist (Disgusting Gross) and pulls him from his tiny kingdom of shame and dirt into the light_

_\---_

_he's never looked back_

_\---_

_isabel, her name is, and there's farlan too and both of them tend to his idiosyncrasies without comment, wipe their hands on their clothes before making magnificent feast of the day's market-pillaging though it helps not at all and he_

_\- it doesn't matter how many times he bleeds whether he drags glass across his skin or falls on stones, it still comes out red and he still doesn't understand why it isn't black, tainted like he is -_

_never thanks them and they never expect it of him, smiles in their eyes when they hit their growth spurts and farlan gets tall and isabel gets female and he picks up cursing in order to bitch at them properly and_

_once he falls off a roof and the explosion of wind buoys him off the ground and it terrifies and invigorates him in a way nothing else does and then he feels alive in a way he doesn't when he's not bleeding, it's addicting_

_addicting the way he can call it up with a thought, a motion, collapse a cart of fruit with a sudden gust or knock soldiers away when they come after him with dirty hands that reach and reach and he_

_(never really stops having nightmares, it's just what they're about that changes)_

_doesn't Know Better because he's something like eight or nine and the best thief under Mitras and he lives his life craning his head way way way back looking at the white shining walls of the castle thinking_ I want to kill him

_wastes what little time he's got on petty things like pranks and party tricks for his two friends who are his world and it never surprises him even one night when he hears the sounds they're making at fourteen or so because isabel and farlan have always been closer than anything and if nothing else he is the brother, the adult though they're roughly the same age and he tries not to hear but the sounds remind him too much of screaming and pain and violation and he gets up to vomit two alleys away, proud he can stave it off that long_

_when he comes back it's been a day and they've spent it looking for him and he returns with his skin spotless, rubbed red and raw and his clothes are still ratty but they smell like Rich People's Soap and he went and stole it all by himself and why would he do that?_

_(he never tells them because it's a different kind of disgusting than the vindicating sort of gross jokes, it's the kind of disgusting he can't ever get off his hands or out of his blood no matter how he scrubs or bleeds himself out)_

_it's another year maybe later and again he's in a race to die because they're gone, they're gone and it was cackling soldiers again just like it was last time and smoke and wind fill his veins when he storms into the castle outright, fifteen or sixteen and hurling guards across hallways with a sharp gesture - many die that day when he steals the breath from their lungs or smashes them into something solid with the anger and force of a tornado, deadly sharp though he walks in there to die_

_(but he doesn't, shackles around his hands and his knees on the dirty ground and the itch to scrub it seizes him, or maybe he seizes it like a buoy to keep him afloat)_

_maybe he spits at him the first time, the very first, out of his mind howling like a caged animal and in front of his cell stands a man proud and tall with a fist curled in front of his heart and he's fucking sorry for them as if that changes anything_ as if that changes -

_colorfully he tells him what he can do to himself instead and that devolves into hysterical yelling that makes his throat crack and yet he stands immovable, a vicious mountain of intent crowned with blond hair and he doesn't budge an inch when the hurricane whips up in the dungeon, ebbing and flowing as he fades in and out of consciousness_

_he's never truly calm but there's a point at which the bastard can speak to him and he's a little lucid and not yelling hoarsely spitting blood between cracked lips, and in that space he offers him food and a way out, a place to go, and that's the part he doesn't understand because he'd rather fucking die than wear those wings and who stands to any benefit?_

_(they don't let him have anything sharp so he resorts to his fingernails cutting and scraping patterns into the gritty skin of his arms)_

_but the bastard is crafty and exactly as twisted as he is because then there's a head dangling from his fist and it's the head of the leader of them, a military police fucker and what the hell? does he have the ability to get people executed at will - but it's one hell of a gesture and he spits that he despises pointless death but even so_

_even so his white-knuckle grip on death begins to loosen and_

_he's never quite sure how he's pardoned but then he's seventeen or something and he's in boot camp, recklessness earning him nicknames left and right but he relies on his swords and the speed of his hands because he can't fuck this up, he's got a second chance and if he uses what he's got he'll surely be executed and there won't be jack shit erwin can do about it if he tries and_

_she's on him like a leech in boot camp and she never really goes away, old four-eyes and he can pretend he's not fond of her all he likes but she doesn't need his reassurance to know she's doing some sort of good for him, stands next to him to keep him calm when entitled fuckers from sina's upper side come to poke shit at him for the tiny glyphs etched neat and small into his skin, atop the ridge of his collarbone in the language of the underground becase isn't it fitting for it to be stamped on him, branded in ink?_

_"sang d'encre," they hiss, fucking up the pronunciation with their pig mouths and it's always been strange to him how the sharpest of insults in that tongue can sound so beautiful but the way their teeth mutilate the sound makes him want to punch them out because it's his; it's the only thing that's been his and there's blood on his knuckles then and they're kissing the dirt and then she pulls him away by the elbow_

_(he scrubs at his hands until they bleed and then he scrubs some more just to watch ruby red stain soapy water)_

_they stand at graduation and four-eyes stands to his right and the row of soldiers stretches beyond her except for the guy to his left, six inches on him and they've never said a word to each other and the next time he sees him it's his corpse, bleeding from his mouth and his stomach ripped open by carrion-birds on an expedition the next year_

_and the scouting legion feels a little closer to home except not quite because there’s the undercurrent of fear that reeks like rank sweat and he looks at the people around him in black and white bright with caution because he’s sure his reputation follows him and_

_the edict’s issued graduation night and the monarchy uses their knights and their protectors to put their citizens to the sword and he’s even the executioner for those first few months, elderly and children that should bleed black just like him but they don’t. they never do and_

_pointless death he spits but this isn’t pointless, this is sending a message and one hell of an instrument he is, he thinks as he looks at erwin unmoved by the blood staining his hands and he thinks_ I want to kill him _because it makes him Sick how he thought he’d seen that sympathy, even twisted with a severed head hanging from his hand and this is all so fucked up and_

_he hates them for bringing his nightmares before his eyes – one girl had had a gift for that and he thinks he tastes vomit and he spits on the fire and_

_he could be lynched but even beyond training his skills sharpen and sharpen and what the hell does erwin want with him? ensuring his tool is keen enough that no one can destroy it if they tried and what is he needed for because the man’s got to be keeping him alive and under his hand for something and_

[ it’s beautiful ]

_// he gets an answer in erwin’s squad five years later when the only things he executes are monsters out in the woods because their expedition takes them to the edge of the lands and he feels like his lungs will collapse until_ until –

 _so many bright colors what is he looking at what is this_ feeling

 _he hasn’t fainted like that in years and he blinks awake to erwin’s face and then he explains_ everything _and he doesn’t follow all of it, files it away in impressions but his eyes widen with_ understanding _and then he_ knows _and it’s_

_and it’s_

_and it’s –_

_{he sees nothing but gray there’s flashing colors and wind rushing and it makes him sick but then there’s_ green-blue-green eyes _and anger and frustration and the idiot just won’t understand and screaming and the tornado bursts forth from his lungs and he’s_

_“ **EREN!** ”}_

_\--_ knocked clean backwards, at least three feet, sprawled on his back struggling to breathe and the stars spin above him in endless dizzying circles and Eren clutches at his chest with scrabbling fingers, still a little bloody at the tips and his head is swimming _because –_

he sits up faster than his bones can handle and they creak but he doesn’t notice because

the way Levi stares at him in full-on _terror_ pulls the air from his throat, and even if the soldier blinks and then it’s a glare sharper than any kind of claw or weapon it doesn’t change the matter that he still saw it and what he _saw…_

“You –“ he tries to stammer but his lips don’t work correctly, and he doesn’t quite process the smooth unbroken skin of Levi’s wrist before the shock spurs the corporal into action.

“Get the _fuck_ away from me,” he growls and it sounds wounded like an animal backed into a corner and he’s baring his teeth instinctually.

Too dazed for once to properly resist orders, he only stares at the man in wonderment, unable to look away though he can sense the murderous intent inlaid with a thick current of something else and –

Levi makes a break for it quicker than lightning after Eren spends seconds not budging, swinging his legs over the rock and holding his wrist to himself automatically though they both know it’s in excellent condition,

and there are too many words scenes impressions rattling around behind golden eyes for him to register the crack of that chasm widening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry
> 
> (friendly reminder this fic's tag is "fic: sang d'encre" and i am [here](http://hopeestheim.tk))


	9. Apocalypsis, Part the Third

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Black Queen and the raven. Or, there is a chessboard and a letter and everyone seeks answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello yes it is me the trash emperor  
> BACK AT IT AGAIN now that i've graduated high school and gotten accepted into college yaaaay
> 
> i put all of my creative writing on hold once school became an issue, but the event of getting my very own laptop, my first one ever!!!!, helped and helps a Ton with fic production!
> 
> so what i'm saying is, for once NONE of this chapter was written on my phone and i am soooo happy for that
> 
> i apologize for the long(er than i expected) break - School and Life kicked my ass and i was just along for the ride, tbh - but hell yeah i am fucking back and does it feel good to be back let me tell you
> 
> i'm on my third 4-cup pot of coffee and i got like three hours of sleep last night but i wrote 2/3 of this chapter today and i just want it online so even though it's 3am i am posting it because i'm impatient as fuck
> 
> i apologize if it takes me a chapter to get back into everyone's skins! i'm juggling several other works of different fandoms at the moment as well which isn't too wise because it makes it really hard to get back into character where it really matters, right here.
> 
> i don't know if i have anything else to share!!
> 
> (oh wait one more p.s. so i played dragon age: origins and dragon age 2 for the first time during the fic break and sde's aesthetic is cOMPLETELY snk's and dragon age's unholy apostate abomination child this was such a revelation  
> (p.p.s. there's a Thing in this chapter that was inspired 100% by marian hawke, so if you're a DA2 fan keep an eye out for that!))
> 
> without further ado, please... enjoy!

It’s a good few minutes before Eren’s breathing slows, heartbeat quiets in volume from drumming horses' hoofbeats to a steady thrum, and that’s when he stands – gathers his hands under himself and pushes himself up and off the roots that dig into his every sore muscle with a curse and a rub at the wood-creases in his arm that leaves his flesh turning red.

The blood from Levi’s wrist flakes off the tip of his fingers, dried and looking black but he knows better than that – had seen him bleeding fresh and red and remembers his words that day.

_Inkbloods bleed just as red…_

He barely registers the rawness of his lower lip, gnawing on it angrily, trying to swallow down the words he won’t get a chance to say, at least not tonight: while he’s itching to follow his soldier’s path through the underbrush, he knows and has always known, on some level, to some degree, that Levi will not be found unless he wants to be.

_Why didn’t you tell me?_

_Why didn’t you trust me?_

_Why didn’t you help me?_

But that isn’t right. (His fingers curl into fists.) Help – that’s exactly what Levi has been giving him, since the very first day, keeping his promise, swearing an oath on the wind.

He thinks of what he’s seen, the flashes of memories in his head starting to fade into mere impressions though he tries his best to remember each and every one; he had never thought to wonder what the wind meant to Levi, untamed, unfettered, free.

And he remembers-sees the corporal as a boy, filled to the brim with sensations he can’t stand and stumbling out of an alley, late, to scrub himself clean.

“Fuck,” Eren whispers, raising his fists to his forehead to rub his palms there; torn between pursuing Levi and reminding him, unintentionally, of his weakness – that he will not do.

The choice is made for him.

He turns to camp, finding solace in the memory that isn’t his, thinking – hoping, if he wants to be honest with himself - that Levi will always come back.

 

 

 

When he wakes it's to the sound of water steaming through the teapot perched atop the campfire and the smell of simmering meat. And for a moment he keeps his eyes pressed firm shut, thinking maybe this once he can hang onto the feeble impression, a whisper of a memory; behind his lids he sees the living room of his parents' house, his mother murmuring something to his father as she washes the dishes and he stokes the fire, looking back at him curled up with Armin inside the crook of his arm and Mikasa pressed to his back with a soft, somber smile on her lips.

When he wakes he does so to a soft ache in his chest, reminding him of what he's lost.

Only Erd sits tending the fire, pulling the whistling kettle off the fire and setting it upon an upended chunk of log, raising his blond eyebrows at Eren momentarily as he shakes the rough metal pan he is cooking three sausages on; the pop and sizzle of grease contrast the rustle of Eren's bedroll as he climbs out of it, hissing as he clips his foot on a sharp rock and feeling about for his discarded boots.

“Where is everyone?” Eren has to ask him, as Erd turns his attention back to the fire and seems to ignore his presence though he makes plenty of noise getting over to the fireside and taking a seat, rubbing away the debris that had gathered in the corners of his eyes. “Sleepy seeds”, his mother called them, and Armin hadn't known what they were called proper, so he thinks of his mother every morning when he opens his eyes and he's okay with that, as far as such things go.

(In a manner it is up to him to keep her memory alive, only strengthened by what Hannes had told him... that it's her gift, or her curse that he carries in his blood.)

Erd looks at him out of the corner of his eye in a way that makes Eren think he's trying to figure out what he will do with the information; it's a look he's seen on Erd's face a couple of times, mostly when it comes to questions about his life outside the Scouting Legion, though the only time he'd seemed to deem Eren unworthy of an answer was upon a curious, offhand inquiry into Erd's family life.

“Gunther left to gather firewood. Auruo and Petra are searching for the Corporal. He didn't return last night.”

Erd is fixing him with that look again like he suspects or knows Eren may have had something to do with it, so he resists the urge to leap to his feet and run off to join the search and bites the inside of his cheek instead, feigning ignorance for the moment; “Didn't return?” he inquires in a way that he hopes comes across as disaffected concern.

The ruse is up. Erd's eyes narrow -

A ripple of wind jars Eren's hair and sets it to whipping, along with Erd's, though surprise more than the force of the breeze nearly causes him to topple from his seat.

His head whips to the left so hard his neck nearly groans, the flames guttering as the breeze churns and -

Levi alights upon the ground on the balls of his feet some distance away, at the edge of the trees, the miniature tempest lessening to nothing as he settles firmly upon the leaves and strides toward the campfire.

“Thank you for preparing water,” he says to Erd with the barest incline to his head, which the soldier returns, appearing wholly unsurprised and responding with a flat “sir”.

But the lance corporal apparently cannot resist casting storm-gray eyes Eren's way for even just a moment, and that moment causes the breath to catch in Eren's throat – the flames in them burn bright and fierce though cold as ice and he knows, _he knows_ he has yet to pay for the events of the past night.

Levi turns and steps to the kettle, blatantly ignoring Eren's presence yet nothing but infallibly courteous to his other subordinate as if apologizing in his own way for disappearing the night before. Which to Eren raises the question,  _where was he?_

But before that can be addressed, he must first consider:  _Didn't he just use his Talent in front of Erd?_

Erd knows.  _Then did they all know? Is all of Squad Levi -_

“Lance Corporal!”

Petra's shout makes it to the clearing before she and Auruo do – in her haste she trips over the very last root before the flat forest floor and Auruo catches the collar of her jacket with a soft “tch” quick enough to keep her from being sent sprawling. She shrugs him off, though her tone is soft and thankful, and darts over to their leader, who is preparing himself a mug of black tea and generally not responding.

Despite his confusion and plentiful misgivings Eren turns to Erd with a question on his face, but the soldier again only raises a singular eyebrow at him.

He looks away.

  
  


 

It isn't as if he means to eavesdrop but the words come to his ears – his mind – unbidden; it's really quite convenient that Levi and Petra are both of the type to concentrate actively on what they're saying as they say it... he's not sure if he would be able to understand the conversation otherwise.

Though only bits and fragments are clear to him.

Petra says first  _I felt something last night I was worried Eren came back without you and you never did Corporal this is Maria District you can't risk something like this?,_ or at least that's what she's thinking. (Eren remedies the thought. There's still some active picking-apart to be done to grasp her meaning but he does it well enough and quick enough that he doesn't miss much.)

Then it's Levi and he  _It was nothing forget it happened there was an incident and I ensured it was sorted out._

(Sorted out an incident. Well, Eren figures with the faintest of flushes coming to his face, that's true enough.)

“I didn't pick you as the type to daydream,” someone says offhandedly, and it brings Eren back to his present reality with a jump and a twist.

Gunther seats himself on the other side of Eren's log with a huff and a grin, setting down the considerable pile of chopped wood in his arms before he glances around the camp... and then back down to the pile with a sigh. “Should have known we'd break camp soon.”

“That remains to be seen,” Erd cuts in, raising his pan just slightly off the flames. “The Corporal's just made tea, and I've sausages yet to cook.”

“ _Excellent,_ ” Gunther says, kicking his feet up onto a nearby rock.

A heartbeat later Levi's voice echoes over the clearing.

“Halve those sausages. Breakfast quick and break camp quicker. We leave in ten.”

Gunther's whispered curse is drowned out by the inelegant laugh that escapes Erd as he tips a little of the pan's grease into the fire.

  
  


 

There's a moment of silence when they're swinging up onto their respective mounts, the remnants of the fire smoking yet into the morning air, when Levi catches Erd looking at him, the expression on his face unreadable.

Levi meets his gaze and doesn't speak, either, and the rest of the squad quickly takes notice.

“Sir,” Erd says, careful, slow, deliberate in his phrasing. “Do you intend to stay hidden?”

The silence becomes even more jarring if it can be when the remainder of the squad holds the breath they inhale at his words under their tongues, because what does Erd think he's saying? What -

Levi says nothing.

But the wind speaks for him, gusting in as a slight puff, blowing the squad's loose hair forward to frame their faces and tousling the dirt and twigs lodged within.

Erd bows his head in response, accepting the answer for what it is, and the sigh the soldiers exhale (all sans Eren) is lost in the gentle breeze.

  
  


 

They are beset first not fifty yards out of their small little forest by small little creatures Gunther calls “Rock wraiths!” - they look like groups of pebbles cast out across the ground at first but when their horses' hooves pass and tread among them they begin to roll together, build together, till they are standing four feet tall on feet made of rocks with bodies round like boulders and a punch from one of those  _hurts_ as Eren soon finds out, like kids throwing stones at his calves.

There's somewhere short of ten of them but they don't move as fast as the horses can run. The Legion mounts, unfazed, canter right through the group of rock wraiths closing among them, but Mina snorts as they cluster 'round her legs before she can get free.

Eren tugs one of his swords free to take a whack at a wraith, unsure what his blade can do against animated rocks, but Mina rears before he gets in a good swing and that's when Levi jumps into action.

He sees the lance corporal raise a hand out of the corner of his eye and the gesture calls up a gust of wind that throws the two miniature golems in front of Mina's legs off-balance; Eren digs into her sides hard with his heels and she jerks forward, jumping over them while they're distracted and there's a wave of remorse for the pain he caused her but it's swept away by a mix of relief and confusion as he catches up with the group.

Levi doesn't look at him and instead rides fifteen feet ahead, taking the head of the column alone.

  
  


 

From this vantage point he can see clearly any threat approaching them, all of which are quickly and precisely eliminated by Levi as soon as they come within danger range; most memorably a group of harpies he mixed up with a miniature cyclone were sent flying into a passing griffon and that was, apparently, that.

Thus it comes as a surprise when Gunther lets out a yell – not one of warning but a battle cry, though his instinct to identify his target seems to kick in as he lashes out with his axe in one hand.

“ _Hellhound,_ ” Petra translates from the garbled wording, sliding her crossbow off her back and priming it to fire in one slick motion.

Their horses do not falter even as the giant canine ducks under the swing of Gunther's axe and – and dives into the shadow under his horse, disappearing as if the dark's swallowed it up.

“Keep your guard up!” Gunther shouts to the squad, mostly for Eren's benefit. “They can move through the dark at will – watch the shadows -”

Eren looks to the side and under him fast enough to get a flash of white fangs slavering as the beast  _lunges out of the shadow beneath him,_ the mottled dark birthing the infernal creature as it makes for his leg, but the sword on his left hip is only partway out of its sheath, and he won't be fast enough -

_Thnk._

A bolt sticks out of its forehead as the beast falls away, lands among the patches of unhealthy-looking grass gray with corruption, its body already beginning to smoke as they ride further away.

Petra slings her crossbow over her shoulder and lets her warm gaze slide to Eren, watches as he releases the handle of his sword from numb fingers and swallows, the not-quite-defined apple of his throat bobbing.

He sees her from the corner of his eye but does not turn to meet her.

All she has ever done is help him and yet – and yet he cannot help to wonder, selfishly, how much is being kept a secret if the squad together conspired to keep who Levi is –  _what_ he is – from him.

_That's not fair,_ he thinks after a moment, but the moment has passed; she's fallen behind and left him to his place in the column.

  
  


 

“Do you trust me?”

It's a loaded, strange question, and it takes more than she's got to pick it apart, following the man who'd pulled her –  _blatantly,_ isn't there any kind of tact or secrecy to what's going on – from her cleaning duties, Wings of Freedom emblazoned on his broad shoulders and she presses her lips together till they're white and offers only “Sir,” as he's not facing her and can't possibly see her face turn from confusion to suspicion to careful impassiveness.

Commander Erwin chuckles once, humorlessly, before shaking his head. “Too much to ask, perhaps.”

The route they take leads to the armory, and she pulls the handkerchief away from her neck as she walks, stashes it in her belt. She's brought nothing else with her so she supposes it makes sense – it's not hard to understand he intends to begin her training now but  _really? Now?_ When Connie and Sasha had looked at her like,  _the hell are you up to_ as she gathered her things and stood up straight, pulled the handkerchief down from her mouth and let it splay over her scarf, shoulders square, following him like a dog to a master.

She thinks maybe he likes it that way.

“If you don't have a preference, I have a... _suggestion_ as to your choice of weapon,” Erwin says to her, holding the door open for the young servant – _soldier now,_ she thinks – to walk into the armory.

And she does walk in. At first. Stops  _dead_ when all the steel in the Capital glints at her with a smile and she's looking around at all of it and everything smells like dusty leather and she's thinking only,  _everything in this room is made to kill._

She isn't sure until just then if she's meant to be there, feels the pulse hammering in her throat because how will she know she's in too deep until she's skewered at the end of one of these – but then Erwin's hand is on her shoulder and he's looking down at her, stoic, expressionless, but knowledge shining in his bright blue eyes.

“Tell me what to do,” she says, then, because the way he is watching her, as if he sees something in her that he will unmake and reforge her for, gives her a kind of hope and strength she is surprised by when she expected a flash of hot anger, because she _cannot be controlled,_ she is strong and acts under her own power but -

But that isn't what will save her family.

To do that she must surrender herself to someone to be manipulated as a piece on a board, and she thinks Erwin understands that, knows that she sees there's a game behind the faces of the Capital and awaits her choice of side.

There are much greater forces at work here and she has never had a choice. She is already in too deep. What is a blade in the stomach if her life is signed away regardless?

At her words he squeezes, just one gentle tense of his fingers on her shoulder before he lets go and strides over to the weapons rack; makes not for one of dulled edge but the finest make, closes his hand round the handle and hefts it from the rack with a show of force but no sound.

She steps forward at the tilt of his head, transfixed by the shimmer of the blade.

The silver metal gleams as if possessed by some inner light of its own, the spine a deeper gray than the wedged planes that construct the edges and filigreed with delicate designs, crimson and reflective, as if the sword pulsates with blood it's already reaped – she runs a finger along the raised embellishments on the flat of the blade, marveling at its newness and yet the presence it seems to hold, can tell from just the feel of it that the steel is virgin. (Could not tell  _how_ she knows but it seems to call to her, to whisper to her such.)

The hilt, in comparison, is conspicuously undecorated; the handle under Erwin's grip wrapped in soft leather, her fingers ghosting over the strips and passing over his knuckles with the barest flush of air between.

Its size is incredible, its weight extending beyond the slouch in her shoulders as he passes the grip to one of her hands and leads her other to support the flat in her fingers – pommel at her chest and its tip would strike the ground, and it is far, far too large to be wielded in just one hand.

Mikasa takes the grip in both and hefts the blade.

In a polished shield hanging off a suit to her right she catches a glimpse of herself, still in her cleaning clothes and holding the greatsword as if a torch to light her path, dark eyes hardened in the warped reflection and she thinks,  _This will do._

 

  
  


When they make camp it's inside the bend of a small river snaking through the plain.

Ten feet away from the gurgling stream the grassland slopes down hard to a dry bed of stones, likely underwater during rainier times of the year. The camp is laid on uncomfortable ground but it is defensible and  _strategy_ is what matters out here in the monster-infested wilds, as Eren is learning.

Squad Levi has been tense and pressing onward since first they broke camp; their horses are only too happy to be rid of their packs and supplies for the night, having only been able to rest for fitful periods spent with their riders scanning the horizon for any flicker of life besides their own.

Therefore Eren and Petra are both set to relieving the mounts together, carrying the heavy packs full of provisions (a squad of six with enough food supplies to last two weeks means pounds and pounds of dried and seasoned meat and other foodstuffs that could handle the trip, and no apples or palms of sugar to feed the horses for their hard work, to Eren's dismay) over to a small crevice behind a loose boulder – an easily defensible spot in the case of a brawl – when it happens.

Eren just barely closes his hand around a strip of leather when Petra's horse, flighty as always, shies away from his touch; the move has the equine rolling her shoulders and dragging the outstretched sharp prong of a buckle across the palm of Eren's hand, the piece of metal tearing a jagged line through his skin and leaving a smear of blood along the leather strap.

He hisses and pulls his hand away, clutching it to his midriff out of habit – it fucking  _hurts –_ though it no longer surprises him (more than is expected) when the faintest trail of steam begins to rise from the corners of the rip, parted skin knitting together  _just_ slowly enough for his eye to be unable to follow.

When he glances up he looks right into Petra's eyes and she has a  _look_ fixed upon him that makes his stomach turn – not fear but  _wariness_ and she has made that face time and time again and still he does not understand – because  _if she knew about Levi then - ?_

(It doesn't occur to him, at least not then, that the... revelation... the memories that are not his... have already begun to strip the illusion and glamour from his soldier in his head, the smoke blown away by a single breath of air, calm, constant.)

But she shakes her head almost as if she reads the half-formed question in his eyes or his mind, glances away, then looks back and smiles at him, as if all she needed were merely to compose herself from a moment of weakness.

It does not fool him.

Suddenly it occurs to Eren with a bloody strap of leather clutched in his hand _just_ how much of his life he no longer understands.

It is easy to think of Shinganshina as an unreachable memory, yet these people – these soldiers – have followed and led him here to the hinterlands seeking something under the King's orders that is important enough for him to risk his best men to get.

He has been so caught up in the... _particulars_ (hilarious, really, to put it that way, revelations he's had along the way that have shaken his entire worldview and they're just _particulars_ ) that he has forgotten entirely about the larger picture and he thinks he can hear Armin admonishing him even now for the stubborn determination that allows him to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else.

The time he has spent over the last day in his own thoughts sorting the acquired memories into something comprehensible has done wonders to free up his thoughts and he feels like something in his head is finally clearing, perhaps, of a haze, a veil of wool pulled over his eyes -

There's a sudden sound from nearby and it's something like a strangled squeak and it drives the train of thought from his mind.

Petra's dropped the pack in her hand, head turned and eyes fixed upon his again.

And for a reason he's later unsure of, he moves to look at his injured palm, passes the bag in one hand to the other and uncurls his fingers.

The blood is still wet and still smears under his pads but the flesh underneath is unbroken, unmarred, scarce a minute later. Fast even for him.

Too fast.

There's a blockage in his throat and by the time he swallows past it and looks up to his companion once more her shoulders are squared and she's striding away, leaving the last bag and the horses under his care without a word, green cloak catching the wind and causing the wings to flap along her spine as if they yearn to take flight.

 

  
  


Of course he has a sparring partner _prepared_ for her; she's come to expect this from Erwin, now, growing evermore accepting of his desire to orchestrate everything _just so._

Mikasa has no personal stake in whatever power game Erwin plays her for, not now, not ever. The sphere of her concern is split evenly between Eren and Armin, as it has been since they were children huddled together under a ratty blanket. She has no heart or time to spare worrying about anything else, she thinks, rubbing a thumb along the leather-wrapped handle as she carries the sword in both arms, following his steps with her head held high.

No heart or time to spare.

And yet – even so -

There's a sharp scrape as her feet drag to a halt on the dirt pitch of the training field even as Erwin continues forward, brown fabric dangling from the fold of his arm and where had _that_ come from – but her dark eyes slide over the sight and come to a stop.

Like ice. Like frozen metal that pains to touch her eyes are locked on blue. Tense. Unmoving.

“You,” Mikasa breathes and altogether she is uncertain why it feels like the air's been pummeled out of her.

The figure in question raises a hand to brush golden bangs away from their forehead, lets the point of their sword rest just brushing the ground, spreads their feet to rebalance their weight – sharpens their gaze with eyes glinting like razors before looking to the Scouting Legion's Commander standing between them and off to the side.

There is the slight hair of a humorless smirk tugging her lips back when she tilts her head at him. “ _This_ is your gambit?”

Erwin inclines his head and readjusts the fabric in his arm; it's a jacket, Mikasa realizes, with the emblem of wings emblazoned across the back. A Scouting Legion jacket.

He is sealing the deal.

Mikasa takes her sword in both hands and feels the steel, the weight of the blade, willing herself to become as steadfast and as powerful.

Her opponent's expression flattens at the shift in Mikasa's stance and she squares herself off as well, passing her sword to her other hand.

“Mikasa Ackerman,” Commander Erwin is saying, stiff and formal and he will pull out all the stops in this, “I now commence your training. Your opponent will be -”

“ _Annie Leonhardt,_ ” Mikasa interrupts him with a hiss of breath and stony eyes, and when she gathers her strength and hefts her sword, she thinks there might be a fierce smile in the tilt of her lips, mirrored across the pitch on Annie's stoic visage.

Their first two steps are slow and measured, taken in unison.

On the third they charge.

  
  


  
  


Before he loses his nerve he strides through the camp kicking up stones as he goes with the heels of his boots; the air smells of mildew and not of fresh stream water as it ought to and it makes him want to gag.

It's sickly. The land is sickly and no one understands this, this _corruption_ beyond the obvious, that it leaches light and life from the world as if a veil of discolor hangs over it, the line between its advancing front and the smaller and smaller sanctuary of life within the Districts as drastic as the stroke of a brush, an upended paint bucket dyeing the once vibrant streets of Trost an ugly gray.

Eren feels nauseous thinking about the corruption, the sickness, that likely covers all the rest of the world beyond this that they know but he refuses to let it faze him, not when he's mustered some bullheaded confidence and he will _have answers, damn it._

His quarry stands on the far side of the fire, conversing with Gunther about something, from the looks of things; Auruo and Petra are nowhere to be found, while Erd alternates between pitching tents (he wonders why) and stoking the fire.

Something strikes him as off about the entire scene but Eren cannot place it, so instead he picks past the fire and stops right in front of Levi, one arm behind his back and the other curled in front of his heart.

Hopes the man appreciates him being... _thorough,_ because he will need whatever shred of appreciation he can muster.

“Lance Corporal Levi,” Eren says, when Levi deigns to fix him with one eye, still speaking to Gunther. “Sir.”

There is a pregnant silence in which neither of them blink and Gunther shifts imperceptibly, awkwardly.

It is the first they have spoken since the incident the night before.

( _Incident._ Levi had called it that.)

Levi rises to the bait. “Yes?” he says, stiffly.

“Could I speak to you?”

Levi sighs and turns just minimally so he can pin Eren under the full force of both of his eyes staring at him like he's a fucking idiot. “You _are._ ”

He knows his soldier is baiting him in return so Eren swallows the stammer that threatens to rise – he is _not_ losing his nerve for this now – and clears his throat.

“Alone.”

Quite possibly the first demand he's made of Levi since he has learned not to make them if he wants to keep his balls, but this is a... different situation, and he has decided to tiptoe no longer.

(He has faith Levi will spare him. Faith and confidence and it's ill-founded and ill-suited but he has it all the same.)

Levi turns to his subordinates, first Gunther and then Erd, both of which make no effort to disguise the fact they have been listening intently and both of which incline their heads in half-nods indicating they will keep watch on the horizon while Levi and Eren are gone.

The lance corporal leads, which Eren finds perfectly acceptable; as they pass the tent that belongs to Auruo and Petra he thinks he can hear whispers inside, which answers that lingering question, though he doesn't dwell upon it.

A hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty feet down the river Levi grinds to a quick and complete stop and – causing Eren to take a step back – whips around on one heel and stares him down with as much intimidation as the man has in his shorter frame, which is a _considerable_ amount.

“What the _fuck -_ ” he begins by growling between his teeth, gray eyes ablaze, but Eren actually manages to find the guts to interrupt Levi before he can unleash a tirade, at considerable risk to his person.

“I want to apologize for my...” he struggles to find the word, “ _misconduct_ last night -”

There's a moment of pause from Levi before his voice drops two octaves and he speaks out quickly enough to cut Eren off in response.

“Shut the fuck up, Yeager,” he rasps, leaning away from him; his gaze actually falls and that surprises Eren the most, even more than the stern demand for silence that is fueled not by anger but by some emotion the younger of them fails to discern.

The brunette shakes his head and his hair ruffles in the breeze, one that is natural in origin. “Corporal,” he begins, then makes a disapproving noise low in his throat and corrects himself, “ _Levi,_ I – I betrayed your trust, and I... I want to do _better –_ I -” he has come too far to hold back now so he says it, what he's been thinking though he's scared he's admitting too much because Levi can't possibly know just what he is to Eren, “- want to be someone that's worthy of it. Your trust. I -”

“ _Eren,_ ” and the breath catches in his throat when he looks up (he hadn't realized he'd been looking at his shoes) and there's something unreadable and thick in Levi's eyes that gives him pause.

But there's a beat of silence between Eren's building rant and Levi's interruption in which they just stare at each other and Eren has never seen his soldier's eyes this wide, glassy, and he isn't sure he wants to know but he's still curious as to what kind of chord he'd accidentally struck – but the moment strains and then snaps, and Levi is blinking and looking away and down and Eren isn't sure why he scrambles to pick up the pieces of whatever had just passed between them but he is, and then he's reaching and his _hand_ settles on _Levi's shoulder_ and oh god it's definitely going to get sliced and diced and what the fuck is he thinking except -

the gesture has Levi's eyebrows knitting as he turns back to Eren as if to reprimand him, and he isn't sure what part of this makes him hesitate, freezes him in place, but it's as if something locks into place.

The expression on his face is something out of Eren's memory, all irritation and sharp edges but there is something different about this and under Eren's fingertips he can feel it, just the barest hint to his fingers but his soldier is positively _quivering,_ a tensed bow ready to fire and he is too wound up for this.

Eren swallows.

Levi's hand rises and –

and pushes Eren's off his shoulder, turns away with a noise that's probably a shuddering sigh and Eren stumbles back, lets his hand fall to his side and that's not, not what he wanted not what he wanted at all but it's better than he expected because it's still. Attached to his body.

_Wishful thinking,_ Eren thinks and repeats it to himself like a mantra,  _wishful thinking, wishful thinking, wishful thinking, wishful -_

“Now that we've established that you're a fucking idiot, Eren Yeager,” Levi says, and it's all business, all appearances, with just the slightest bit of something off about his voice that he cannot put a finger on, “is there anything else, because we're sitting fucking ducks out here and I'd rather not take on a horde of monsters without my squad, since we're in _Maria District_ -”

“Why are we still going south?” Eren asks before his mind catches up with his mouth and he can stop the query dead in its tracks.

Levi's mouth tightens into a thin line.

(Just because Eren would have bitten down and swallowed the question doesn't mean he doesn't desire the answer.)

The lance corporal looks at him and his visage darkens.

“I am acting on the last orders I received from Erwin.”

Eren's eyebrows tweak up just a few centimeters. “You,” he hesitates, “haven't gotten orders in... how long?”

Against all odds and suspicions Levi answers the inquiry. “The last courier I received was in Trost.”

Days ago.  _Days_ ago. “Are we still supposed to -?”

“Do you think if I knew I wouldn't have told you?” Levi growls suddenly. “Do you think I'd willingly endanger my squad by giving them less information than I have? Do you _think_ I want my soldiers to walk into Shinganshina blind?”

_That's what it is._ It's the silence that has Levi on edge, uncertain, looking at his squad and thinking  _am I leading them to their deaths? I put down the executioner's blade and I never wanted this to ever happen, ever again, Erwin knows I refuse to hold lives in my hands -_

Eren shakes his head and forces away the heated whisper of Levi's thoughts. “What if we turn back?”

“You die,” Levi says automatically. “Failure. The King holds you personally responsible and demands your head and _nobody_ comes back from that. Not even you.”

The breath Eren sucks in isn't because of that imagery. “You're not doing this for _me -_ ”

“Of course not,” Levi says darkly, “how fucking narcissistic do you have to be – but when I said you're my responsibility and my property I _meant_ it. My squad. That's what it means.”

He's sure he shouldn't feel as warm inside as he does but he _does_ and there's nothing stopping that. He just hopes there's no flush rising to his cheeks – he isn't sure he could handle that.

“We're here to get in your basement and get out,” Levi continues. “Nothing else. There's an entire District of monsters between us and safety and I'm not risking any of you.”

Eren nods stiffly. It's an order, an order from his soldier and he knows exactly what to do with those, back to superior and charge and this dynamic he understands.

(The memories he's locked in a box in a corner of his mind stand as testament to how much has changed but for now he ignores them until he knows what to make of all this.

For now.)

 

  
  


There is no finesse to the way Mikasa swings her blade because it's all raw power and indignation at first, and maybe that's for the best, because no amount of formal training can hope to polish Mikasa Ackerman into something greater than she is, a rough-cut diamond pried right from the earth.

A sharp _clang_ rings off the two blades as a two-handed swing from the dark-haired young woman meets the groove between the blade and the hilt of the blond's sword; Annie redirects the momentum to slide harmlessly off the length of her sword rather than shove back, using Mikasa's brute force against her and straining to create an opening.

Three times already Mikasa had fallen for the trick in a single-minded mission to force Annie onto the defensive but this fourth she sees the underhanded swing aimed towards her prone right side and tucks her body in towards her blade, flipping her grip so she can reverse the swing while Annie lunges into the space she'd occupied just previously.

Annie ducks around the swing and laces her way around Mikasa's body as she recovers, jabs an elbow at her ribs on the left side and reaches in with her submissive hand to grab a handful of her shirt, pinning her arms between their fronts and leaning into the face of her prey even as Mikasa fixes her with a stare that promises vengeance.

“Anticipate,” Annie whispers at her, then pushes her away – hard.

Mikasa stumbles back but regains her balance and her greatsword quick enough to save herself from a fall, casting one foot back to compensate for the weight.

The way her eyes snap up to Annie's again is magnetic in its intensity.

It's the blond who lunges first this time, going in for a sword jab towards the inside of Mikasa's arm but she is _learning,_ knows the tactic Annie is developing of circling around her uncovered flank and striking from the inside, so rather than stepping aside and allowing her to approach Mikasa steps _backward_ and catches the point of Annie's smaller sword on the flat of her blade.

The metal unleashes a jarring screech as it skates upward and off, the stab deflected flawlessly, and Mikasa utilizes the barest _moment_ it takes Annie to recover control of her blade to twist her grip and swing.

Had Annie not seen the sword sailing toward her midriff and thrown herself to the ground to duck it, she would have been cleaved in twine; and if Mikasa notices the stain of water on the front of Annie's shirt, she says nothing.

Perhaps she mistakes it for sweat rather than the remnants of a melting ice shell layered across her stomach.

It's _rare_ she loses control of her instincts enough that her Talent manifests without her explicit action and that both irritates and _enthralls_ her, and she doesn't bother hiding the smile tugging at her mouth from her opponent, caught up in the rush of battle.

Silently she beckons, determined to pay Mikasa one back for a near-death experience that may be nearer than she desires to acknowledge – but the danger of the acknowledgment relies wholly on Erwin's gambit.

She sneaks a glance to him watching impassively from the sidelines.

This is not the situation she – they – expected, but if political turmoil gives them an edge, well. Annie Leonhardt is a warrior and a proud one at that but there is no commandment suggesting the wolf cannot walk among the sheep if it serves to the wolf's advantage.

Even if, she thinks, shoving the pommel of her sword towards the nearest of Mikasa's flesh she can reach, this particular sheep has steel wool.

  
  


 

It is Auruo's turn to prepare dinner and his stew is frankly disgusting but it is food and they've not stopped long enough to eat all day, so everyone drains their bowls and no one says anything in complaint.

At least, not out loud, if the look Petra and Gunther share is anything to go by.

Together Eren and Petra take their dishes further down the creek to wash them; the smell of food attracts wild animals and monsters and their camp is already placed in a vulnerable location (out of necessity as it is a defensible location but sources of water draw wildlife, as does fire) so it does no more good to leave the scent of foodstuffs near their sleeping ground.

As Eren is dumping out the large saucepan for the third time, rinsing the inside well, he looks up and – again – catches Petra affixing him with a gaze that reminds him of someone inching towards a stray dog that may carry disease.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks before he can think about it enough to tell himself not to and he is on a _roll_ of saying the wrong thing today, apparently, from the way heat creeps over her cheeks and she turns away, back to her stack of bowls, kneeling at the edge of the stream.

What surprises him is the fact that she speaks rather than ignoring him outright.

“Eren,” she says, and it's with a sigh that is punctuated by the swish-slosh of water in and out of the bowls, rinsing each one, two, three, four times and moving onto the next.

She puts the second bowl aside on the water-turned stones and sets to work on the third, aware of his gaze but not looking towards him.

“There's something... I have to tell you.”

“That you all knew about Corporal Levi's Talent?” he offers, and it's at that that she turns, amber eyes widened just a hair as if the statement surprises her and at that he shakes his head lightly and tips the gathered water out of the saucepan again. “I understand.”

“It's not that,” she assures him, returning to her dishware as well. “I... I am, too.”

It takes Eren a few seconds to understand her meaning but when he does he looks up, perplexed.

“ _Really?_ ” is the first thing out of his mouth though, of _course,_ she isn't lying to him about this – rather, it's that she simply told him that surprises him. When once he'd have recoiled in disgust he now takes the words and turns them over in his head and he's not sure when that changed.

Perhaps. Perhaps it changed with Levi.

There is something that confuses him about her statement, though, and he begins to voice it.

“When I woke up – after the dragon – I thought you were afraid of me.”

She understands his train of thought and shakes her head, auburn hair dancing lightly. “I wasn't,” she says. “Maybe a little wary, but never afraid, Eren, I -”

There's a splash and then a clatter of her setting a bowl down, then silence for a few beats of his heart, measures of his breathing, as he rubs at the bottom of the pan.

“My Talent,” she begins, haltingly, testing the waters of this conversation and he is sure she has never spoken of this in such a manner to anyone else before. “I can... sense other Talents, when people have them and when they use them.

“But I never... sensed anything from you.”

Eren sets the pan aside and looks to her.

Petra is staring at the bowl in her hand as if it holds some answers for her and then he understands.

It was never really about him.

“I think there's something wrong with me,” Eren says, slowly, and draws Petra's eyes from the water sloshing in the bowl in her hand. “Something about my Talent isn't... isn't right.”

 

  
  


Eren carries the stack of dishes in both hands as he walks up the riverbank.

He is the last to return to the camp and the fire is burning low as he passes by Erd and Gunther's tent, making for the mess pack to stow them away.

After minutes of staring out over the river Petra had asked to excuse herself and he took on the rest of the task of the dishes, unsure what to do for her when she had been so comforting to him other than make sure all their duties were handled.

He had watched dusk descend over the horizon with some trepidation – sure he isn't supposed to be alone outside of camp – eyeing the roiling storm clouds encroaching from the east and thinking it was perhaps a good thing they had chosen to pitch tents instead of just bedrolls.

Unfortunately (at least, for him given the circumstances) the situation mandated that he share a tent with the corporal.

Eren isn't sure what to expect when he holds up the flap to slip inside after turning ashes over the embers of the flame, passing by the horses to ensure they were prepared for the night, and saying goodnight to Auruo and Gunther (who together had drawn lots for first watch, while he had gotten third watch with Erd) but it isn't what he sees.

Levi sits cross-legged on his bedroll with a candle burning to his side and a worn leaf of parchment in his lap. His shirt, cravat, jacket, and cloak are folded neatly at the foot of his bedroll, leaving the skin of his torso and back visible in the flickering light of the candle.

When Eren swallows he thinks it's loud enough for the corporal to hear but he doesn't look up, or otherwise give indication he is aware of Eren's presence; it's only when Eren asks “What is that?” that he looks up, eyebrows furrowed as is usual for him.

He expects not to receive an answer and so he isn't surprised when Levi leans over to a small box beside his bedroll, pulling from it a roll of tobacco – _oh –_ and lighting it in the candle flame.

But then he speaks and it's as Eren is moving so he freezes mid-step to catch his soldier's words.

“Erwin's last missive,” he says, crisply, as if it explains everything, and... well, damn, actually it does.

He takes a long drag on the lit roll in the time it takes for Eren to weigh his statement between being an invitation or a flippant dismissal, and he exhales the smoke before the younger of the two reaches a definite decision on which it is, so Levi beckons him over with a jerk of his head.

Eren weighs the pros and cons of _that_ before following the request, padding along the tent floor to take a seat next to Levi's bedroll and accept the parchment that is passed to him.

_Levi,_

_Wolves on the prowl. H suspects squad, evidence circumstantial but enough to warrant concern. Pack dynamic uncertain. One horned and under surveillance._

_Consider Black Queen active. Will explain specifics at later date. Expect no reinforcements._

_Keep Raven **caged!** Find and secure package, rendezvous with M in Stem in one week._

_ Incinerate upon arrival. Good luck. _

Eren's tongue comes to rest against his teeth as he reads and rereads and rereads another time; it is obvious the code refers to specific people and places though he's only able to make sense of “package”: whatever there is to be found in the basement of his family home.

“He wrote your name,” Eren observes, passing the letter back to Levi.

“ _'Incinerate upon arrival'_ ,” Levi says, thumbing over the specific words as he pulls the roll of tobacco from his mouth to speak, breathing smoke as he clarifies. “I'm under orders to burn these after reading them.”

“But you kept this one,” Eren responds as a statement more than a question, and as such, Levi doesn't offer an answer beyond the dip of his head and the replacement of the roll between his lips.

There's a pause as Levi takes another drag, then exhales the smoke from his lungs; the smell of the tobacco is a familiar stranger to Eren and he's not sure how long it's been since his soldier has last smoked around him but privately he thinks it's something that defines him – and something Eren wants to try.

“H? M? Stem? Raven?” Eren inquires instead, watching the cloud of smoke dissipate into the tent. “They all mean something, don't they?”

“Hanji,” Levi begins, reaching past Eren to the small box beside his bedroll; from the top he produces a tiny metal container the size of a box of matches and into this he taps the ashes from his roll of tobacco. “Mike, another squad leader and Erwin's right-hand man.”

Eren doesn't need to speak the question for them both to know it but Levi neglects to address it in either case.

“The Stem is Trost, the southern tip of Rose District,” there's a slight pause as Levi speaks around the smoke in his mouth and _then_ lets it out in a cloud, “and the Raven is you.”

“Me?” Eren parrots the statement without a thought. But, then: “A raven?”

“An ill omen. A messenger of the dead.”

Eren doesn't immediately respond to that. Instead he looks down at his hands; unmarred and scrubbed clean of the blood from earlier.

Levi's got his eyes trained on the younger of the two when he glances up again as if waiting for his reaction, but all he'll get to see is a kind of flat acceptance on Eren's face.

When really his stomach is  _ churning. _

_ What's really wrong with me? _

He's brought back to reality by Levi tilting the roll of tobacco towards him – offering it to him.

At Eren's confused glance he inclines his head. Yes.  _ Really. _

It's crisp in his fingers when he takes it, hesitantly, and he's afraid he'll break it or dump out all the tobacco, it's that fragile and light to the touch; he pinches it between his thumb and forefinger and cages the rest of his fingers around its body, raising it to his lips and inhaling, slowly, the smoke sliding along his tongue.

The smoke in his mouth  _ burns  _ but he follows Levi's instruction to hold it for a few moments, though it takes a lot of effort and has his eyes beginning to tear up; at the corporal's cue he takes the roll from his mouth and pulls the smoke into his lungs.

When he exhales it's with a lot of coughing and a lot of dizziness and he passes the roll back to Levi before he drops it, propping his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands.

There's a sound when he shakes the lightheaded feeling and he isn't sure what it is – it occurs to him when he looks up that Levi was  _ laughing,  _ softly and quietly but even so.

“Pulled too hard for your first time,” is all he says, picking up the missive again and narrowing his eyes at it.

Eren is content to watch him when he's fairly confident Levi isn't looking, the definition of the muscles in his arms and chest creating deep shadows where the flicker of the candle doesn't reach, pale skin burnished golden in the light of the tiny flame.

“You didn't burn it,” he says again, after a long moment of silence.

“I'm missing something,” is the only thing Levi says in response, crisp in a way that suggests _I'm pissed that I haven't gleaned everything from this letter, not pissed at you for asking_ and it is wondrous to Eren that he has begun to be able to tell the difference, if perplexing.

He does not want to move but the pain in his back becomes too intense to ignore – he may be able to heal most any injury but a soreness of the muscles will always take time, and they have ridden hard for the day and will continue to do so.

So when Eren stands Levi stands also, intent on checking on the first watch team – as second watch he will be unable to sleep, now, until third comes.

“Eren,” Levi says around the roll of tobacco trapped between his lips, running one hand through his black hair and _mussing it, actually mussing it_ which doesn't seem _right,_ he knows how the man has a place for everything and everything in its place – but Eren's jarred from his thoughts when Levi shifts next.

He raises his hand to Eren's cheek,

higher,

presses the back of it against his forehead for a moment.

“I'll wake you for third watch,” he promises, after a moment of the odd position that he _absolutely will not_ question. “Sleep.”

Then he's sidling out of the tent  _ shirtless  _ with his  _ mussed hair  _ and Eren thinks he's going to have a stroke but he lays down with an order, and sleep he does.

Sleep he does.

  
  


 

He does not ask if this is wise, or if this decision has been thought out, or if he really  _ knows  _ what he says he feels and knows, but they have come too far for wisdom and playing safe.

It is Reiner the warrior astride the horse and not Reiner the soldier and Bertholdt would follow him to the ends of the earth and back again, gladly, even if he acts on a “hunch” and more than seventeen Bertholdts' worth of determination.

Reiner is and will always be his spine, his control, and he knows his place is beside him.

He is a warrior.

They are partners.

But there is a glint to Reiner's eye that looks almost manic in the darkness of the night and it brings Bertholdt unease to look on him like this – look  _ up  _ at him, and it is a change, because he spends his life desperately trying to take up less space than he should.

Reiner is astride his horse and looking down on his partner and there's a confident grin on his face and Bertholdt wishes nothing more than to share in his confidence, though all he has in this world is the sword at his side, the pack in his hand, and his partner through thick, thin, and all.

“ _Bertholdt,_ ” Reiner stresses, jerking his head back to gesture at the entrance to the stable. “It has to be now. While Squad Leader Hanji is out.”

“Is he alive, Reiner?”

Reiner rolls his eyes as if Bertholdt's asked it ten times before and he certainly has, if not more, but Reiner is nothing if not soft on Bertholdt and he indulges his partner's overbearing caution.

“It doesn't _end_ like that, Bertholdt. It doesn't. And if the coordinate – “

“ _Shh._ ” The taller's face is stern.

But he chooses. He chooses to sling his pack over the back of his mare's shoulders, he chooses to swing himself up into her saddle, he  _ chooses  _ to follow Reiner and he's got only one question to ask about this, all of this, anymore.

“Are we the _heroes,_ Reiner?” he asks though it's more for his partner's sake than his own.

Bertholdt will follow Reiner to the ends of the world and back as a sinner with blood on his hands because he already is one. It is Reiner who craves repentance, he thinks and knows, Reiner the soldier who refuses to acknowledge the actions, the deeds of the warrior.

Reiner doesn't look at him, but his voice is stern.

“We have to be.”

 


	10. Apocalypsis, Part the Fourth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets, service, and sacrifice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me start by saying that this would have been up last night but i fell asleep drunk on the couch before i finished it so there's that
> 
> hi folks!! my only excuse for how late this damn chapter is is school. i just finished my first semester of college and i'm loving it but it takes up more of my time than i thought it would, dammit. but that's okay. i think.
> 
> i don't even have much to say about the chapter itself besides the fact that the entire wolf thing - you'll see what i mean - is a product of after-planning planning because there was nothing in this vein planned for the fic but i didn't realize how much i needed this direction.
> 
> hopefully the next chapter comes out quicker bc i've been looking forward to 11 since its conception. this is one i really didn't want to write so i kind of took pains to avoid it, but it is here now - and takes the crown of longest chapter at 13157 words!
> 
> special thanks go out to gladie gladiatorAviator, iza Piyo13, and throne throneofwaste just for everything that they do in relation to this fic. they're wonderful please love them
> 
> and as always, please enjoy!

The stench of monster sweat and breath drifts across the campsite as third shift drags on and the moon disappears behind the horizon.

Eren keeps his eyes trained on the solitary dire wolf as it paces ten meters one way, turns, and paces the other direction, hands resting on his swords; Erd has his spear laid across his thighs and does the same, patient.

The dire wolf makes another round, looking at them with baleful golden eyes, much like a dog but several times the size.

“Is it injured?” Eren finally hisses to his watch companion, less concerned with the way its ears swivel and more with the nearby tents of his companions. It isn't worth waking them over a single wolf, and Levi in particular needs the rest he's getting, if his paler-than-usual complexion is anything to go by.

He is not much of a caretaker nor does Levi require that of him, but he will notice what he notices and that cannot be helped.

“Most likely,” Erd says quietly back, straightening his spine, shifting his weight. “No pack. Desperate.”

Eren's throat tightens a bit as he looks at the wolf with a more critical eye; it's something like three or four in the morning, the fire down to hot coals and burning cinders, and he struggles to make out its flank in the mottled darkness, but he can just barely see the tufts of fur poking out and hanging off its body, blood-stained and drifting on the slightest of breezes.

“Why did it come to us?” Eren wonders aloud, and is surprised when Erd responds.

“It's us or death,” the soldier says, not looking at Eren though the younger glances to him. “Just because they hunt us doesn't mean they don't hunt each other. Maybe it's hoping we're better than the plains.”

It begs the question.

_Are we?_ Eren thinks.

The pitiful creature is staring at him now, snuffling, gathers its limbs under itself and sits on the cold and rough ground.

Eren is up, on his feet, and moving before he registers what he's doing; it takes Erd even longer to react, obviously not expecting the young man to do something so incredibly stupid. But when the blond lurches to a stand, Eren shakes his head and holds up a hand.

_It's okay,_ he thinks and gestures.

He isn't sure, later, whether Erd hears him or obeys the hand.

With a cured piece of meat in his hand, dug out from one of the packs near their seat, Eren lets his swords slide in to the hilt in their sheaths, boots scuffing along the ground and kicking up clouds of dust.

The wolf watches him approach, ducks its head lower to its paws and issuing a low growl from the back of its throat as he draws closer with a  _scrape-scrape-scrape_ .

Unsure how to placate an animal – a  _monster –_ like this, Eren tucks the tip of his tongue near to the roof of his mouth and lets a quiet “shhhh” slip past his lips, extending his free hand, palm-up, a gesture of trust.

When he looks back, Erd is watching attentively from a distance, half-raised from his seat and his lance clenched in his fists; ready to come to Eren's defense, but trusting enough of his comrade to allow him a few moments out of his protection.

Its head – the beast's head – is the length of the tip of his hand to his shoulder from snout to neck, corners of its mouth curled up to reveal fangs the size of daggers, but the snarl devolves into a strangled whimper as Eren's hand reaches within biting distance and pauses.

_Soft._

The fur on its jaw is softer than he expects because this is a bloodthirsty monster, this is something that would kill him without a second thought but it's leaning into his palm, sniffing as it catches the scent of meat on the breeze.

Eren moves slowly, slowly, trying his hardest not to provoke the dire wolf into biting off his hand along with the chunk of meat; in order to keep its golden eyes on the food, it rears back and spreads its paws, between which he sets the morsel.

The moment his fingers clear bite range it is gone, snapped up in one greedy mouthful – he keeps his hand away from the feasting animal as it chews on its prize two or three times and swallows.

It looks back up at him with baleful eyes as if he will feed it more and he hesitates the barest moment before shaking his head; intelligently, its ears fold back against its skull – each triangle of skin and fur the size of two of his hands – and its head cocks to the side.

He feels guilty at the way its side continues to heave, the way its weight comes to rest upon him, its head sliding down and down to rest upon his thigh; conscious of Erd standing some distance away, watching with hawk eyes, he runs his thumb along the brow of the wolf, lets his hand move to rest upon the section of its ribs he can reach, find the hurried pulse and pained, struggling breaths.

His hand comes away wet with blood.

In the dark it gleams black, like spilled ink, and he tucks the word under his tongue, tilts his hand so it catches the soft light of the flickering coals.

Perhaps the glow illuminates the blood, or perhaps not; but against the round flesh of his thumb it is a crimson stain.

As if the wolf hears the way his breath halts, it looks back up at him, and when he gazes into its face he sees such a flicker of sentience that he's taken aback, given pause, like he's looking into a person's golden eyes – but it blinks, the moment passes and the low whimper in the back of its throat is that of a suffering and struggling beast and no more.

It is reckless.

It is reckless and stupid and he will be chastised he is  _sure_ but he does it anyway, bites his lip hard enough it leaves indents, forces his palm, his hand against the dire wolf's torn side hard enough the creature whines in pain, and screws his eyes shut.

 

 

 

 

 

When he approaches the wolf it isn't like approaching Levi. His conscious is not blistered-face-chapped-skin in cold wind scathing breeze; instead he moves through tall grasses, gray, discolored, pushing the stalks apart with his hands, rasping against his palms.

The sky above is mottled, dark, clouds approaching black and the sky beyond even blacker, and the air reeks of carrion, raw, fresh, grass blank of color like bleached cobbles whispering secrets he isn't meant to hear along his clothes.

His eyes begin to water and he blinks the tears-to-come away, moves through the plaingrass, plain grass, parting like a sea, boots constricting his feet in painful sliding steps and knees aching with each bend, swing of the joint.

Scent thickens in his nose, rubs his hand against, scruffs the flesh on his face with something rough and he looks down,

 

spine cracks,

 

the world falls away.

 

He's ground-borne hugging in agony his pieces together and if he were drowning he couldn't find the surface, pain in his fingers in his back all over his body and it's a hot  _itch_ even as every joint sears, snaps, cracks into place, knees back shoulders click and he's shrugging the lingering pain off, climbs onto all fours and shaking his head like he's tossing off a thick blanket.

Every blade of grass is sharper yet indistinct and he can  _see_ the color of the carrion-scent and he sniffs on instinct, feels flesh move, nose past his face and in a moment of sheer fear he lets out a piercing whine.

When he swings his head, it's like a bludgeon. Looks down at his hands, first – fur fur  _fur_ covering his limbs and where are his fingers, those are  _paws_ and what the  _fuck_ is this. Snuffles at the gray-brown-black coat of hair and it smells, he smells, but there's no word in his lexicon, can't describe this experience in anything besides stilted terror and earth once tilled in his nose.

Eren closes his eyes and wrinkles his nose and tries to speak, but the structure of his jaw, elongated, stiff, sharp teeth lodged in the bone, doesn't permit more than a choking coughing noise.

Over the soft rustle of the grasses around him in the tiniest stir of a breeze comes an answering noise, cough-cough-whine and reflexively he feels his ears flatten against his head,  _what a thought,_ at the sentiment of pain, fear, loneliness that raises fur on his neck.

Overwhelmed by a distinct desire to follow, to seek, his paws work under him, stumble here and there as he gets used to the looming mass that is his body; when once the grass reached to his chin it now doesn't even dust the lowest hairs on his stomach and the height is disorienting, though the plains reach out before him in little tiny dips and valleys as if over them children could race.

Hidden by the smallest ridge nearby he finds it, a flat meadow tucked away beneath an outcropping of earth; it's when he raises his muzzle to the air and draws in the scents tucked in the breeze that he does, blood nearby soaking into the earth and the heavy stench of death winging in from the south.

Though the latter gives him pause for moment upon moment twice over, he tucks his nose into the wildgrasses and lets it lead him to the tiny clearing, pads and crunches dry stalks between his toes, claws leaving great furrows in the dusty ground.

Splotches of dark red blood – he knows by the smell, nosing over them gently – litter the grass and the ground and he crushes dirt and grass underfoot as he crouches back and  _leaps_ in one humongous bound straight into the clearing, tail hung out to maintain his balance and moving in counterpoint to his long muzzle as he spins around, golden eyes casting 'round the landscape.

The wolf lays pained and pitiful on a bed of bent grass, sticking up around where its body had finally given out, and while his human eyes would have noticed the bloodstain colors first his nose picks up the reek of an open wound instead.

It looks up at him beseechingly, half his size and much like a broken doll though he knows in health it could kill him, his human body, in one bite to the neck. But the whimper that edges out between its killing teeth, small smaller than a baby crying and tinged with halting breath, draws one in response from his throat and then his stomach hits the ground, legs folded under him, and he's nosing gently over the damaged ribs, skin and fur torn and bloody and open enough in some places that with human eyes he would see mangled cartilage and sinew where the scent-picture shows him only pain.

Pain; a universal language.

The dire wolf seems to be asking him for help in the way it cranes its neck back. This – this part he remembers, remembers what it's like, for just a moment, back in his own body, bleeding out on a forest floor as a dragon rages above him.

He can feel the wolf's pain like his own and when he would think  _beast_ the word burns to ash before he can, long past the point of caring about something like this because he is himself in the body of something he would call a monster, even if he feels as if he's floating free, untethered to the world, ascending, perhaps, the aether above him.

_Please._

_Help me._

Moves like a cold river through him and he is conscious of this, this time, everything he  _is_ welling up in a series of heartbeats and he is a conduit, pours himself into the creature with every struggling pulse, tips of his fingers beginning to tingle.

In a haze of senses images assault him in this boundless aether he sinks into when his eyes drift shut: sounds like multitudes of humans screaming, screaming, screaming, fire-crackle and ash-fall from the sky, staining white pelts gray, drying wet pools of blood; taste of carrion and death on the air and scavengers nose among the wreckage, ravens croaking, croaking, croaking, valravn-to-be perhaps flapping their wings and pecking amidst beams of ruined wood.

With a claw on his paw he turns over a pan and the smell of a burnt pie greets him.

_Where is this?_

The landscape around him dissolving into smoke like the remnants of a fire carrying it away leaves him floating again, free, unconscious of his limbs like so much bone and flesh growing ever less corporeal; dark swirls around him and then he is

 

falling

 

perhaps

 

down down  _down_ into that creeping darkness and his breath catches,

he tries to scream and  _then –_

 

 

 

 

 

With a strangled gasp he straightens, feeling his hands and arms and feet and legs explode instantly into pins and needles, numb to the way he scrabbles through dirt and fur struggling to regain sensation.

He hears Erd behind him with a heightened sense of his surroundings, the man's calm breathing seeming louder than thunder and he can't place his finger on why, but when he looks up, looks back over his shoulder, the wave of sound lessens and the noise in his head diminishes; where it pulls away, recedes to low tide, it leaves aching in his skull and he presses the heels of his hands to his forehead.

The dire wolf noses against his thigh and he remembers its presence with a jolt.

Forgetting the surge of pain in his head, his hands drop to its pelt without a thought for his safety or the safety of his hands, without a thought for the wolf's strong jaw and dagger-sized teeth, groping for the wound that had once rent its flesh.

When his fingers drag across smooth unbroken skin, fur marred yet by dried blood, he releases a breath he hadn't known he was holding through parted lips, sits back on his heels and pulls his hands back to run his eyes across them.

Stained with the same dark red blood, but unchanged, and this doesn't sit right with him. This will never sit right with him.

“What am I?” he finds himself whispering, not expecting an answer, letting the question hang in the air like an untethered cobweb, drifting light in the breeze and flashing in the uncertain sudden light of things he should not be able to do, that he feels compelled to do nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

 

Erd sets a hand against Eren's shoulder after the wolf makes its slow plodding steps away from the encampment, its weight a welcome presence, known but not unbearably so.

It's only with the hand to steady him, ground him, that Eren doesn't sink to his knees in tiredness and confusion.

His companion does not ask though the questions must linger; merely he slides his lance into the line of leather rings across his back, looks up and past his comrade, staring out into the night after the wolf's receding silhouette, light against encroaching blackness.

“I saved it,” come the words eventually, unbidden, long after Erd has lost the quarry of his eyes – Eren isn't looking to meet Erd's, but he seems... conflicted, if the soldier could place it. Torn between prejudice and action, perhaps, and he bars the thought before he can countenance it, refuses to remind himself of the weakness, the best mistake he'd ever made in his life in long brown hair, watery blue eyes clutching at his cloak and begging for his forgiveness.

“You chose to,” he says instead, the slight glimmer of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips though Eren doesn't see it, and that's fine, because it's not meant for him – it's meant for the hatred he's held and holds, something like the weight on Erd's shoulders when he first enlisted, headed for the Garrison, eager to protect the life he'd known for all of his.

Something like the weight lifted from his shoulders when she fell to her knees keening and grabbing at his clothes, frantic chanting of phrases resembling  _I Am Human_ and he reaches down to her and cups his hands around hers, kind, careful, whispering back  _i know._

Erd thinks selfishly that Eren reminds him of himself – selfishly in that he thinks himself learned, hopes Eren has the same revelations that he had had, idealistic young man to someone a little older, maybe a little wiser, but knowing what it is in this world that makes men do such heinous things as make war against each other. Hopes for that same comprehension to dawn on this young man rolling through the undertow of the men above him, the people around him, the tightly-woven web of prejudice and misunderstanding that holds most of the people in thrall.

“Yeah,” Eren says, and it stirs Erd from his thoughts with the tiniest hitch of his breath. “I guess I did.”

 

 

 

 

 

Neither of them mention it to the lance corporal, or any of their squadmates, saddling up their horses and taking down camp with leaden feet, stifled yawns and something glimmering in their eyes that they share in glances and pursed lips.

 

 

 

 

 

Petra turns to Levi the third time he strikes down some airborne creature from a league away, the sparseness of the land, once-tilled farms and abandoned dirt paths, lending well to seeing across the plain; they are thundering past the wreckage of a farmhouse, the barn missing a side and the stone building tipped over, swarmed over by grasses and moss, when she does, matches his pace by driving her heels to her mare's flank and passing Eren around the outside of the formation and leaning over close enough to the lance corporal to exchange words that wing past Eren's ears too fast for him to comprehend.

It occurs to him just after the fact that he could listen if he so desired but the moment of hesitation it takes decides for him, one quick utterance and a bit response and Petra is falling back slowly into her place, a tortured and somewhat frustrated look clear as day scrawled across her visage when he turns to look upon it.

He makes as if to speak but swallows the words back when she ignores his gaze outright, turns away, lips pressed to white and hands hooked on the reins.

 

 

 

 

 

Eren has begun to not notice how stale the air is when it runs over his tongue; only the memory of a fresh breeze across verdant land stands in comparison, the arid wind tasting sandy in his mouth.

Color seems leached out of everything they ride past; a pale sun had risen into a grey sky at the dawn of the day, and there now it hangs to cast its light over everything, even the grass bleach-grey under its beating rays.

“Auruo?” he asks, because Auruo is closest to him, today, he and Petra the first real pair in the column but Petra wholly unresponsive to him, lost in her thoughts or perhaps in whatever Levi had whispered back to her that morning.

“Hnn?” comes his grumbling response, which is entirely understandable considering Eren doesn't really ever speak to him, and their current situation is less than pleasant to brighten their moods.

Eren himself isn't sure why it comes to mind, but he asks the first question he can think of – inane and only superficially personal but the desire to  _know_ still hits him.

“What's your favorite color?” he asks because it occurs to him he knows nothing about these people, and it seems improper to ride toward likely certain death with people he doesn't know.

(The fairytales will never stop haunting him. Neither will the lingering sense that camaraderie will save them all, somehow.)

Auruo grumbles again loud enough to be heard over hoofbeats and rubs his hand across his face, a gesture of  _fucking unbelievable_ – but to Eren's surprise, he responds to the query.

“Green,” he says in the same tone one would say _what the hell?_ and the meanings are one and the same but the grin that tugs at Eren's lips displays how much he cares.

“Where did you grow up?”

Auruo looks like he's going to bite his tongue – again – but he runs his hand through his hair instead and scratches behind his ear as if summoning up the energy to deal with the younger.

The pause is long enough that Eren almost turns away, leaves the question to the dry air around and between them, but the soldier clears his throat before he can decide whether or not to drop the line of inquiry.

“Trost,” he says, rather crisply, as if by snapping off the name perhaps he can avoid the attachment. “Lotta younger siblings back home.”

The idea almost knocks Eren off his horse. “You're a brother?” he asks, the incredulity evident, the words bursting out of him before he can make sure he's eliminated the surprise.

It is unfair of him, because of  _course_ they all have families; merely he doesn't think about the people these soldiers are when they aren't soldiers. Of  _course_ they have lives and parents and sisters and brothers and people who will miss them when they are gone.

Eren thinks of Hannes, his quaint home and his forge. And then he thinks of Levi.

_Does Levi have a family?_ he barely has time to wonder before Auruo responds to his question – seeming somewhat offended.

“D'you assume I don't got anyone?” he demands. “Just because I'm a scout, I ain't got a life? Ain't got people that care about me?”

Undoubtedly he assumes that Eren will respond just as heatedly, perhaps hurried to assure him of the misunderstanding in order to assuage Auruo's pride; instead the younger of the two turns back to stare at his horse's mane.

“I'm sorry,” he says. Because maybe he _did_ think the Legion was glorified suicide – somewhere for people who wanted to die to go and face it without losing their dignity.

Ignoring outright the idea that people chose this life for reasons other than their death.

 

 

 

 

 

When the plains start turning to farms growing more and more clustered as they continue, the chatter of the group falls silent.

Stormclouds above their head gather and darken as they continue, the storm the evening before forewarned entering the prologue of its performance; over the sound of hoofbeats Gunther professes its advantages.

“Shinganshina will be a territory split by packs and groups of monsters,” he says, brow furrowed with certainty and Eren is calmed and enthralled by his lack of doubt. “The storm will distract them and hinder their ability to smell us coming. Even so, we should steer clear of larger groups. Make our way through the city quickly and quietly and we will be fine.”

“What happens if we end up between two packs?” Eren asks. Gunther does not look at him.

“We won't be fine,” he responds.

The frankness takes him aback – but it is true and it isn't worth dwelling on.

It is not time for his happy stories of heroes and victories. It is time for reality.

 

 

 

 

 

When the very first of Shinganshina's outer walls appears on the horizon Eren's knuckles whiten like clenched teeth around the reins of his horse.

 

 

 

 

 

Levi signals a halt with his hand when they draw into the shadow of the wall; the gate is missing, the arch gaping, able to admit two abreast. He raises himself into a stand in his stirrups and looks back for Eren, gestures him forward with a jerk of his head.

Their eyes don't quite meet and Eren doesn't dwell upon it, too much of something in his throat to breathe properly or think properly and this is  _it,_ this is  _now_ and one hand comes to rest upon the handle of the sword at his left hip as he looks to his leader.

Lance Corporal Levi is carved of stone as he issues the order.

The order is not what Eren expects to hear.

“ _What?_ ” he hisses under his breath to the man next to him, eyes widening, flecks of gold passing shadows over his irises that Levi sees, perhaps, in this life or another.

“I said,” the soldier's neck tenses, “you make your own choices. Work with us, or independent of us. If you judge that I'm leading my men to their deaths, you save yourself.”

“Levi -”

His eyes are sharp, cold, piercing and it stills his breath. “Promise me, Eren.”

In his piqued anger he almost breaks the whisper that keeps their conversation from their comrades. “I'm not going to  _abandon -_ ”

Uncaring of who among them watches Levi reaches for Eren's shoulder; in the end he reaches his forearm, grips it with chilled fingers Eren feels through the jacket.

“I can't tell you what the outcome of this will be,” Levi says and Eren thinks that this is it – this is all the fear Levi permits himself to show, in trying his best to ensure that someone will survive. That someone will choose not to die for this, _have_ the option to choose life.

“What do I choose?” Eren whispers.

Levi shakes his head.  _I don't know,_ his gesture says, and Eren tucks the rebuttal under his tongue.

The soldier releases his grip.

His words are quiet.

“The only thing we're allowed to do,” he says, looking ahead through the arch, through to Shinganshina on the other side, “is believe that we won't regret the choice we made.”

 

 

 

 

 

The soft shuffle of horseshoes across ruined dirt road is the only thing besides their breathing making a noise; no birds call, and the air is stagnant, enough on the humid side that Eren feels as if he is breathing in the storm that cannot be more than an hour from crashing.

It is deafening – the silence.

He has not heard music for many years. Perhaps the oppressive quiet of Shinganshina, this, his home fools him, but he thinks if he strains he can catch the barest fragment of notes on the very fringe of his hearing. It's distracting and he twists to locate it, catches the eye of Petra behind him, and the way her lips grow taut and the furrow between her eyebrows expands gives him pause.

There is no time for his attention to be divided.

Levi looks at him out of the corner of his eye as Eren nudges his horse a half-step faster to catch up; with Erd and Gunther at the rear, he feels no need to look behind. Instead he allows his eyes to wander from doorway to empty doorway, vacant houses with dried-up plants growing between the stones, blank windows like lightless eyes.

He thinks he hears kids shouting. He thinks he hears music, and he shakes his head and lets the memory of a town fall back beneath the surface.

“Lance Corporal,” he hears Petra murmur, and he snaps back to himself, in time to follow Levi's gaze to her gesturing hand, trace the line towards the broken roof of a house two blocks down.

The flicker of movement inside has his hands dropping to his swords, his toes curling in his boots.

Auruo nocking an arrow sounds like the last note of a funeral dirge.

“Hold,” Levi whispers – he too grips the handles of his swords, knuckles whitening like the bones raised under his pale skin. “Hold.”

_Why not surprise?_ Eren wonders. But the answer occurs to him in the set of Levi's face. Tense. Waiting.

Whatever progress they make without the notice of the monsters prowling this abandoned carapace of a town, even if just steps, is progress towards their goal and they've come  _too far_ to jeopardize this for the sake of one early arrow, one shot in the dark.

“Sir.”

Gunther. The same moment the barest of growls rides the expectant air to them.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Levi swears and Eren draws his swords with a rasp of steel, feeling the battle come as if a pull in his sternum.

Auruo fires with the sweep of Levi's hand and the dying squawk of a harpy from yards away rebounds off the stones, almost sharper than the sound of weapons being readied.

The wolves pounce from holes in the walls of the buildings behind them.

A flurry of gray and black fur too mottled and muddled to make sense of and the wolf from the night almost stops his hand but Eren swings anyway, swings and swings and the warm splatter of blood on his cheeks comes again and again as he cuts down every muzzle that leaps at him.

When the harpies come he doesn't hear their cries but rather the sounds of their deaths, screeches and thumps as Petra and Auruo sink bolts and arrows into them, guarded by Erd and Gunther; the latter tears holes in the pack of wolves nearly the size of their very horses, and the former strikes bee-precise with a calculation that might have once scared him.

He loses sight of Levi though he looks for black and green amidst blood and fur. Everything is blood and he can't breathe until the last swing, the last snarl, the last whine as the beast  _bleeds out under his hands, his very hands -_

Eren freezes.

It's only for the barest passage of a heartbeat and the battlefield before him is empty but he  _freezes_ and that's when he is nearly torn off his horse.

A sound of a shout something like “ _Eren!_ ” but then there's a roar instead and he feels the wind rush past him, feels his stomach drop as he turns, his arms and hands numb and he should be dead.

He should be dead but  _Levi -_

No. Levi does not snarl the way a wolf does when their jaws grapple and when he comprehends what it is he's looking at he is three seconds before watching  _that wolf, the wolf_ skewered on Erd's spear.

“ _Stop!”_ he commands with every fiber of his being – and he does. He does stop, as if he hits a wall and can go no further; perplexed Erd lays a hand upon the air but the gesture goes unnoticed, the phenomenon goes unnoticed as Eren slides from his saddle, stumbles on wolf carcass and slips on bloody dirt but falls to his knees in front of the wolf anyway.

His pants were white once.

They were white once but he doesn't care, offering his hands palm-up to the wolf with red on its neck, the torn-out throat of another dire fresh in its mouth; wolves fight each other, he knows, but it still turned on its own kind for  _him_ and how he could ever have thought these creatures as monsters, he knows not.

“Ah,” Erd breathes, recognizing the wolf with Eren's gesture.

“What?” Gunther is the first one to ask; they are all still breathing heavily and they do not understand, but Eren – enough _weird_ surrounds Eren that it isn't unusual for him to treat with a dire wolf.

Perhaps what surprises them most is his humbling, his prostrate behavior; acting on instinct to bare his neck and has he willingly prostrated himself, ever?

– He can hear them. He can hear them thinking this as he buries his hands in the wolf's fur, gives him a good pat, but he doesn't bother to expend energy on worrying about that.

He trusts Erd to explain. There is something more important on his mind.

“Didn't take you for pets.”

Ah, there he is.

Eren twists, rubs an absent thumb along the back of the wolf's neck as he begins to growl, staring up at Levi who towers over him in this position, obscuring the overcast and darkening sky.

Though before he can say anything the wolf pulls away from his hand, noses along his arm as it shoves past him, footsteps soft on the dampened ground as it approaches Levi, slow, deliberate.

The soldier does not react, stares down his nose at the wolf as it in turn looks up at him -

And sits, placing its paws neatly in front of itself, cocking its head to the side intelligently.

“Not bad,” Levi says after a few moments, holds out his hand back-first to the canine for it to sniff. “What poor fucker is this, I wonder.”

Eren does not understand. Unless he speaks of the wolf's lack of a pack -

“It was alone last night,” he says, rising to his feet, disregarding the blood and dirt that stains his clothing.

“Last night?” Levi inquires and Eren realizes he had said nothing about the wolf to him – hadn't had a chance to.

He inclines his head. “It came to us on watch last night. Injured. I... figured out how to heal it.”

Levi makes a noise that sounds like a choke or a coughing bird. “You  _healed him?_ ”

“Yeah, I -” Eren makes a face. There's no way for him to describe the experience in a manner that doesn't confuse him. “I don't know how. It's not _human -_ ”

“He,” Levi corrects him, dragging a thumb from between the wolf's eyes back across the dome of its head. “His name is Thomas.”

“ _Thomas?_ ” Eren's eyebrows crinkle in confusion. “How do you know?”

“Gut feeling.” Levi dismisses the question. He raises his voice, pulling his hand away from the wolf – from Thomas, if his word – his _gut feeling_ – is to be trusted.

“Squad Levi, to me!” he calls; though it is only a hair louder than his speaking voice, Eren still looks at him sharply.

“What happened to silence?” he hisses under his breath, looking around them.

Levi stares at him as if he's an idiot. Though he probably is, it is not comforting to see it on the lance corporal's face.

“That puddle of blood is a bigger alarm than I would be if I stood on a roof and swore at the sky all fucking day,” he says, flatly, and the truth of it dawns on Eren as he watches the corporal walk past, making for their horses where they've gathered behind them.

Thomas noses at Eren's arm, stares up at him balefully, and raises a paw to step over a bent and broken harpy wing, black feathers crumpled and smeared with bloody mud.

Two of Petra's bolts lay buried in the figure; one in the breast and one in the neck. With jerking hands, he pulls out each of them, clean, to return to her.

 

 

 

 

 

The squad of soldiers behind Eren's back do not question why they are following the footsteps of a dire wolf. It is but one strange thing among many, they are likely thinking. As they did before –

He swallows down the bile rising in his throat. It is stupid because they are right; his presence has been nothing but a handicap for them, dividing the lance corporal's attention and interrupting the cohesive movement of their unit. Of  _course_ he is the unnecessary addition; this has been true from the very first, from the moment he was pressed into the Legion for a crime left attempted but not committed.

It was – is for his family. But it makes him feel sick that for days, weeks even, Armin and Mikasa have barely been on his mind.

_They're okay,_ he tries to remind himself _. They'll be okay. They're tough._

The words feel empty. Hollow.

Levi rides ahead of him by a few paces, following Thomas' movements with precision. Eren had tried to argue that he knows the streets as well as any dire wolf, but the lance corporal merely looked at him and reminded him that he couldn't sense monsters worth a damn.

It is true, of course, but Eren still harbors some small modicum of resentment; something base, something mundane to keep him focused and not hyperaware. Shinganshina may be a deadly labyrinth, but it is also a long one; it would not do to wear out endurance early.

Watching the empty houses pass, some burned out, some abandoned mid-meal, is almost as tiring for him as the act of fighting itself. He does not know this part of the city, had never run on these streets or stolen bread from corner stalls in the market, but he thinks he remembers what it would have sounded like, smelled like.

It bothers him. Not that he ever consciously chose to cut himself away from Shinganshina, but to reconnect  _now,_ when nothing lay here but memories, ruins, and crazed monsters, seems... wrong.

He is here on a mission. He ought to remember that, that this is not of his own volition, and he supposes that changes things.

Thomas freezes mid-step at the same moment Auruo swears, reaching for an arrow – on a roof above them something ducks away, a flash of fur as it turns.

The way they ride is only steps out of fighting formation; Erd and Gunther move to surround Auruo and Petra as the both of them ready their weapons, Levi and Eren each drawing their swords.

“What is it?” he hears Petra whispering to Gunther, and his stomach drops when he shakes his head.

A rumbling sound, like that of a building roar, funnels out through the alley nearest to the house – nearest to Eren, who turns to face it, hushing his horse with a gentle whisper and a pat.

They wait. They should flee – he feels it, instinctively, in the way his skin prickles and his hair stands on end, and sees that he is not the only one when behind him Levi is as tense as Auruo's bowstring and Thomas has dropped low to the ground, crawling towards him, teeth bared in a deep and throaty snarl.

They should flee but they do not. It is too late.

“WHO?” the voice bellows, almost knocking Eren off his horse in surprise; a feline yowl lingers just under the surface of the human speech but the word is unmistakable. “WHO in my territory?”

“Hold,” Levi whispers behind him, and Eren's fists tighten around the handles of his swords.

“WHO dare?” the voice demands again, the words crisp and disjointed, as if pieced together from a terribly incomplete lexicon. Rhythmic thumping joins it and continues when the harsh words wither on the dry air, that of footsteps on packed dirt.

It emerges from the shadows and Eren wishes it had not, his teeth clenching behind his lips and locking in the disgusted noise.

A handsome face, pleasantly angled, an older woman with graying hair – she would be pleasing to look at did her face not rest upon a feline neck and body, the graceful curve of a scorpion's tail arcing above her. She prowls, ears twitching as if voices speak that they do not hear; low to the ground, her movements are measured.

“My territory,” the creature – the monster – emphasizes. “WHO?”

“Manticore,” he hears Gunther whisper darkly.

The manticore as it is called does as well, ear twitching. “NO!” it screams, something like rocks scraping against metal and Eren's teeth clench even tighter. “WHO?”

No one moves for three heartbeats, dragging slowly on, until – glancing back to Levi and seeing only a blank stare – Eren sucks in a breath and lets his teeth come apart.

“Residents of this town, once,” he says, clearly, enunciated. “Here to take something that belongs to us.”

“HA!” the manticore screams its attempted laugh. “LIVE! HA!”

He sheathes his swords and raises his hands in a placating manner. “We have not come to bother you, nor to encroach on your territory,” he says, but as he speaks her tail begins to lash, as much as a scorpion's tail can.

“LIES!” the manticore declares, interrupting Eren mid-word. “Do not like lies. My territory.”

“We are just passing through -”

“LIES!” Eren looks the woman – the manticore – in the eye for a moment, and he inhales at the way the mist that clouds them, the uncertainty, swirls up and disappears for a moment. They sparkle with new-found intelligence, a new-found clarity. “Residents. Just passing through. LIES. You are here for _it._ I will not treat with you.”

“ _It?_ ” Fervently wishing Levi were doing the talking, Eren's hands start to quiver the slightest hair. “What is _it_?”

“ _It_ is what you seek,” she tells him, firmly, spreading her paws. “Yeager-work. Devil-work. _You_ are Yeager. My territory. _You_ will die.”

“Wait - “ Eren tries, but there is no “wait”. There is no time.

She lowers her weight to pounce and he draws his swords, but he is too slow; her great mouth opens wide and he sees rows of teeth gleaming.

And he sees a bolt and an arrow suddenly protrude from the roof of her mouth.

The manticore falls back with a startled scream that turns into a roar. Before Eren can move, a shadow arcs above him; Levi falls through the air, having pushed himself off his horse with a gust for momentum, his cloak flapping in the breeze a pair of Wings of Freedom. As he plummets he brings both of his swords down in a great cleaving blow – cutting a gouge down the manticore's cheek and chopping her opposite ear clean off.

Blood splatters. She screams and roars again and it is then that Gunther and Erd engage, relying on her disorientation to prevent her from countering their close quarters effectively with her paws, the size of sturdy boulders.

He remains frozen and he cannot place why. His comrades, his  _friends_ are in danger and yet he feels rooted in place, unable to find the will to move. Even Thomas does his part, darting between her legs and pulling at the tendons of her ankles and lower legs with his powerful jaws. Yet Eren does not.

Yet Yeager, as she calls him, as Levi had once called him, does not.

“Eren!” Petra yells, as if seeing his hesitation; the sound of her voice urging him to _do something_ pushes him forward, enables him to swing off his horse and grip his blades tightly enough to hack at her flesh with them.

Unfortunately her call draws the manticore's attention as well. With a feline hiss she readies her tail, readies the large barb at its tip – and  _something_ that moves too fast for the eye to follow launches from the straight point, arcing just barely.

He hears a shout of “Pet-!” and then a muffled groan but he charges with a roar to match the manticore while she is distracted; steaming blood falls from her ear and other wounds onto the shoulder of his cloak but Eren does not care, swinging both swords up just as he drops himself into a low sliding stance under her neck, hoping to sever an artery.

With the way blood pours out onto him a moment later, he must have connected. Where machines have oil lines and other lines of supply, living creatures have veins; it is not the first he has applied mechanical principles and it will not be the last.

Eren ducks away before she can collapse on him like an unstrung puppet, pushes against the hard muscle of her furred neck to pry himself out from under her, a soft gurgling noise let loose by her split vein leaking blood into the dust.

The rest of the squad stares at him when he tugs his caught right blade free from her neck, swallowing hard before wiping the stain off on the manticore's fur.

Thomas pushes against him, slightly concave flank fitting against his arm.

Auruo lets out a curse, suddenly, and his bow hits the ground with a clatter as he doubles over.

Petra is at his side immediately but he waves her away, one hand pressed to his thigh; his trousers are cut, and he throws away the three-inch-long sting that had embedded itself in his flesh. Blood seeps out from under his fingers but the wound puckers, looks a little green and Eren's stomach rolls.

“Auruo.” Levi is there in that instant, supporting the unsteady archer.

“It's poisoned,” Petra says and she holds her hands in front of her mouth like she's afraid of letting something else. “We need – we need shelter. He needs to lie down.”

“We don't have it.” He tries to bury his worries under the guard of a carefully impassive voice but it fails; it fails when it wavers on the short syllables.

Auruo shakes his head. “'M good,” he tries to say, but the pallor of his face doesn't help his case.

Erd looks at Eren. “Corporal,” the soldier begins.

Eren squares his shoulders, but Levi's snapped response causes them to tense.

“He'll be useless too.”

“I can _heal_ him,” the boy stresses, sheathing his swords and striding over to his commanding officer, boots scuffing the dirt. “I can -”

“\- Make yourself as much dead weight,” Levi finishes his sentence. His voice is stern and his frown is sharp. “It takes everything out of you. You think I don't know that? It's not a _trade._ ”

“But -” It's not Eren who protests; rather Petra, who flushes and claps her hands tighter over her mouth.

The hand on the arm of Auruo's that is slung over Levi's shoulder curls into a fist. “No,” he grinds out, teeth clenched against the throb in his leg. “No... goddamn poison gettin' me today.”

Petra looks at him. Really looks at him, eyes searching his face.

Eren looks at him, too, but Levi's own eyes do not waver, storm-grey piercing Eren and chilling him like the cold front before a storm.

“It's your decision,” the soldier reminds him and it's not a burden he wanted. He did not _want_ this because either he lets the poison eat through Auruo's body until they find a defensible location or he saves him now, only for the two of them to hinder the rest of the squad as they recover.

Levi said it wasn't a trade but it is. It really is. Are they willing to sacrifice Auruo for everyone else? Is  _he_ willing?

There's something hard in Auruo's face when Eren looks to him. A mask of steel – the man is a soldier, after all, and he does as soldiers do: soldier on.

The nearly imperceptible tug of his lips back into a sort of half-hearted smirk or grimace has Eren's answer in itself.

He bows his head to Levi.

“I'll follow you.”

 

 

 

 

 

Gunther had turned away from the entire conversation to gather up the horses, and he pointedly does not look at Auruo as they ride.

They had taken a moment to bind up the miscellaneous scratches and tears accumulated and now white bandages with growing brownish stains may as well be part of the uniform. Gunther's forearm is bound in two different spots, one a ditch carved by a stray manticore claw and the other cuts from a harpy's grip; he pays the injuries no mind when he hefts his axe again, the first to respond to Thomas' low growl.

He is especially on edge and Eren can feel it but cannot understand why.

The dire wolf scents the air at an intersection that leaves them to pick right or left; his muzzle swings to the right and it's then that the first drop of rain hits Eren square in the middle of the forehead.

No one speaks as the faintest of drizzle begins, unsure how this will help or hinder them – mask their scent or mask the scents and sounds of approaching monsters.

Not for the first time and certainly not for the last Eren closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath.

It is disorienting to him that this is  _Shinganshina –_ he knows the path to his home from here but what manner of monsters lord over the abandoned homes left here? How many people  _died_ here when the city was abandoned? He has so many questions but now is not the time for them, if there ever will be one.

This place is no longer his home and it hasn't been for seven years and he  _knows_ that, it is just – it is too easy to lapse into a life he  _should_ have led, had his friends never been taken.

Had his mother not been killed.

Where would he be now if she had lived? Here? Trost? Where would Armin and Mikasa be? With him? What –

“Snap out of it,” Levi orders under his breath and Eren opens his eyes mid-thought.

“Sorry,” he responds, and taps his heels just barely against Mina's flanks, edges her into stepping forward faster than her pace in order to fall back in time with Levi's horse.

The lance corporal looks down at him, him astride his horse, without expression. The horse he had let Eren keep, rather than a Legion horse, the result of some pitiful groveling and a fair amount of forehead-rubbing.

But she had served him well. Perhaps a Legion horse would have taken longer to trust him, and perhaps in Trost they would have been caught.

“Stay alert,” Levi says, to Eren an order, but more of a request if he is honest. Because Eren is not his to command, anymore, and perhaps never really was.

“Levi,” Eren starts, but it is quiet enough that the soft sound of the falling rain masks it. At least such he assumes when Levi spurs his horse on, without answer.

With a sigh and a flick of the reins Eren quickens pace to follow him.

 

 

 

 

 

Soon they will need to cross the river. He hopes Thomas knows where some intact bridges are, because most from what he remembers were wood and wood does not keep except under careful care.

Monsters infesting the city hardly qualify as careful care.

It is visible that this, the center of town, is – was – a richer neighborhood. The walls of the buildings are sturdier, and would provide ample shelter were not most of them locked, a futile effort to preserve valuables for a someday return; they do not have the strength to break down a door except with Gunther's axe but at the very thought of stopping Auruo shakes his head and demands they continue.

Eren would not call himself fond of the man but the proud set of his shoulders as he drums his fingers unsteadily on the wooden curve of his bow and carefully maintains his balance on his horse awes him. He can  _feel_ it, feel the manticore poison and it drives him almost to sickness but he doesn't dwell upon why it is he remains aware of it – only turns minute after minute to glance back at the soldier behind him, unflinching and immovable but for his pale face.

At one point Auruo catches him glancing and he rolls his eyes. “Eyes  _front,_ kid,” he barks, and if Eren looks away he can pretend that everything is normal, that Auruo is fine.

So he does. He looks forward and ignores the way the still-gentle drizzle drips down his forehead and watches it splash into the river as they ride down the bank of it, Thomas looking like a miserable drowned rat at the front of their unusual procession.

He does and he pretends.

And if pretending consumes enough of his focus that he fails to see the gentle rise and fall of the river, swelling as if hills on the horizon, then perhaps he ought stop running.

 

 

 

 

 

There is an overhang, once a boat storage, on the poorer side of the river and Thomas makes for it immediately, shaking himself off under it with a whimper and seeming more and more like a sad puppy rather than the terror-inspiring dire wolf he might otherwise be considered.

The drizzle became a downpour halfway across the stone bridge and his clothes stick to him now; he envies Thomas the pelt, but the act does the wolf no good as soon he is under the storm again.

It makes Eren wonder. What causes this creature to choose leading their dismal band through the storm rather than take shelter wherever he may find some? Whatever it is, it is not instinct; the thought of  _what_ it might be, however, is hard for him to approach because down that avenue of thought hisses the manticore, a severe old woman calling him a devil and cursing his name.

What was it that she knew? What was that moment of clear thought, something like  _human_ intelligence?

Beasts are monsters are beasts and he knows that but it's not the first time he's been wrong.

Eren looks to Levi through his wet and hanging hair, sees him watching Thomas pensively.

It's not the first time he's been wrong. And Levi knows  _something,_ as he always does.

But now is not the time to dwell upon it. As Gunther had said, they must needs remain alert; rain interrupts scent, and they can no longer trust Thomas to alert them of a –

“Harpy!” Gunther calls at the same time a pained screech rents the air, Auruo not hesitating before sinking an arrow into its breast as it dives at them, obscured by the stormclouds.

It hits the muddy ground with a sickening  _squelch_ and sinks a few inches and Eren's stomach drops with it. – Can they fight on this if their horses flee?  _He_ might, Levi might – but what about the rest?

The harpy is not alone, but there is no flock to follow it; Thomas' sudden snarl tips them off a mere heartbeat before the first wolf charges around the corner, and Eren...

He reaches out without thinking, ordering without speaking, he thinks, commanding the dire wolf ahead of them to fall back, lest they attack him too.

However it happens, whether he shouts it or otherwise, Thomas falls back to behind Mina, who starts at the wolf at her back leg but defers to Eren's steadying whisper.

The dire wolf leading the charge falls to a bolt between the eyes, and Petra jerks her crossbow back to reload while Auruo lets fly the arrow strung during her draw. Though their cover is uniform, the two of them working in perfect tandem to maintain the steady flow of bolts and arrows, it could never be enough compared to force of numbers. Merely the wolves leap over their fallen packmates and take two seconds longer to reach Eren and Levi.

Mina tries to rear up onto her hind legs and he moves with his horse, lashing out with his blades and catching at least one wolf at the shoulder joint, pulling with a great heave to feel the sharp steel cleaving through bone and sinew.

It comes away bloody and the wolf falls away tipsy with weakness, only to be replaced by another, and another -

The horse's hooves come down and a loud whine sears Eren's ears as she kicks one on the way. He pulls back for another swing; Erd's lance slides across his field of sight and skewers a leaping wolf through the mouth and skull, guarding Eren's recoil, dropping the warm corpse into the mud as Erd pulls back to defend himself.

Levi leaps off the saddle of his horse, buoying himself into the air with a compressed gust. The familiar click-whirr of the maneuver gear anchor surprises Eren; he cannot afford to let his attention stray but he glances up anyway, sees the anchor buried in the splintering mortar of a chimney but tugs his eyes away before he follows the wire.

A mere second later and Eren has a sword between himself and a pair of wolf jaws, applying pressure as much as he can to force it off him and his horse.

Then the wind kicks up.

The sudden crashing wave of wind turns the water droplets sideways, stinging against Eren's skin; a tornado contained in the small street no bigger than an alley forces the wolves against one wall, splatters them with blinding mud and swallows the sound of their desperate whimpers.

He holds his arm up before his face to shield himself from the eddies of cutting wind and water but it is unfounded; the tempest stutters as it reaches its full force, then peters out prematurely, leaving the wolves mired in muck but it's not to them he looks.

Eren feels it and it informs his movements, kicking his feet out of the stirrups and resting his fingers upon the triggers attached to his swords, firing an anchor at that chimney and dragging himself off Mina's back before he can think about it rationally.

He  _feels_ it, primal  _fear_ and a flight response that has Levi on the defensive, jumping off the edge of the roof just before Eren reaches it.

“ _Down!_ ” the soldier yells, catching Eren's arm as he falls; he is smart enough to retract the anchor before Levi pulls his wire taut, and then they are both tumbling.

His world spins. The only constant is the hand gripping his arm and he makes that his focus, reaches to hang onto Levi too if he can, a smudge in his vision -

The softened impact of a buffer of air nearly knocks the wind out of him but Levi sets them on their feet in the mud and muck.

At that moment the building disintegrates.

Rather it appears to; through the roof bursts something  _hulking,_ a giant form that forces Eren back a step through sheer intimidation, and onto the creature the building crumbles like so many toy bricks and matchsticks.

It shakes its massive triangular head, opens its round green eyes – and affixes Eren with malevolent slit pupils.

“ _Cover!”_ Levi barks and pushes his squad to the ground with an arc of wind at the very moment the massive creature swings its tail through every building surrounding it in one circle of devastation.

Eren hears the hiss before he rubs the mud from his face enough to see; he is sprawled prostrate on the ground and to his right is a collapsed wall, a pool of blood underneath it mixing red to brown and turning blackish.

He swallows hard against the bile that threatens to rise and looks forward.

Thomas stands over him, crouched, tail raised in as much of a threat as he can put forth. His fur is gold-brown-gray smeared with mud and blood and plastered to him by the rain, makes him seem less a dire wolf and more a large dog but the growl that echoes deep in his stomach is more than how he appears; it is what he  _is._

There is no way a creature like that can stand against a towering snake with  _fangs the size of its body_ but Eren is still in too much shock to move; his limbs will not respond even to lift himself from the ground and the cold seeps into him quickly, cloak and jacket and shirt nothing against freezing rain and mud.

His ears are ringing and he thinks to hold them but his hands are pinned under himself and  _he_ is pinned by the hungry stare of the monster, sheer terror instinct at the gleam of its bright irises in the gloom locking his bones and joints.

So when he tries to call a warning, when the beast's eyes flick from him to the dire wolf standing guard in front of him, when he tries his damnedest to fight against the slow steady pull of immobility binding his limbs to the ground...

He cannot flinch.

He cannot look away.

But Eren strains to yell and chokes on the cry. Chokes on it and sputters when the monster's forked tongue darts out, scents the air, and inhales hard enough to bruise when it's suddenly – gone.

He hears the pained whimper before his eyes track the great snake, and Thomas' broken body in its jaws raises a fire in his veins that burns away his bonds.

The world slows before him and Eren doesn't hear himself shout; his swords are in his hands and he brings them up and over his head with a mighty swing, sliding through the mud, momentum and newfound strength enough to cleave a griffon in two behind the blades.

With a sharp and numbing clang that reverberates up his arms they glance right off the snake's bejeweled hide; flecks of obsidian taunt him as he stumbles back, even the ridge of its nostril too tough to pierce with anything he has.

As he recoils he catches sight of Thomas' flank, stained with blood, the beast's upper left fang disappearing into his fur and emerging from the other side.

“No,” he doesn't hear himself saying – instead his heart roars in his ears, his blood racing, drowning out the ringing. He takes a step, only to find himself being shoved back.

Levi pushes on his chest with one hand as hard as he possibly can, sending Eren reeling and trying to gather his feet under himself before he falls; a gust of wind shoves him and freezes his clothes to his skin just as he regains his balance and it's then that he topples, waiting for the ground to meet him.

Not so. Gunther catches him with one arm and an easy pressure to the small of his back. And before Eren can shake off his grip Gunther leans down to his ear.

“Find Petra and Auruo and take cover. Leave this basilisk to us.”

He thinks, watching Erd's and Gunther's backs as they run past him, cloaks billowing and war cries on their lips, watching Levi ahead of them leaping into the air and into his domain, that this is what being a scout means. Gambling their lives against impossible odds, against utterly untouchable enemies. Praying that among them one will live and willing to deliver themselves into devils' jaws for that hope.

Eren cannot bear to look and yet he must, retreating, returning to the crushed rubble for his comrades; Erd and Gunther dance together, aware of themselves and each other in a way that extends far beyond simply fellow soldiers and he is almost envious watching the way Erd maneuvers his lance deftly enough to redirect a glancing blow into an upward jab that catches the basilisk in the roof of the mouth as it readies to bite Gunther, sets the beast to jerking back and allows his partner to regain his axe –

The observation gives him pause.

If the creature is impervious to blade, is sheathed in armored hide –

Might the flesh of its mouth prove its weakness?

Eren stares at the desperate fight before his eyes for another three seconds, sees Levi move to impale the basilisk in the eye but regain himself when the recoil of his sword against its scaled eyelid threatens to topple him, before he twists around and darts toward the fallen buildings.

A great hissing splits the air as he kicks up mud, rain still drumming against everything with which it may make contact and veiling the world in unlit gloom.

On instinct Eren moves hard to the right, throws himself out of the way as the basilisk jerks forward, tries to pounce and ensnare him in its jaws the same it did with Thomas; its lower jaw hits the ground and tosses up a wave of water and mud that splatters Eren and the toppled stones that used to be buildings alongside the once-alleyway both.

Then Levi is there, descending from the air with the fragments of a storm whipping around him to spur Eren forth and guard his retreat – _why,_ he wants to ask, _why save me,_ because he doesn't understand it and whatever understanding he has is undoubtedly incorrect – and he's stumbling towards the piles of rocks and using his hand to vault a low border of them with adrenaline informing his actions, because he needs Petra and Auruo – they need Petra and Auruo right now or they will all die.

He nearly kicks Petra in the back of the head as he leaps over the short wall; when he lands he stumbles and slides, trying to pivot but finding nothing to hold himself until his flailing hand catches another chunk of demolished house to grab.

Eren's breathing heavily and the basilisk still rampages, raising its head two stories with a deep hiss whenever Erd or Gunther lands a blow to the inside of its mouth – but even so Auruo's pained breathing and Petra's rasp of breath fall upon his ears like the unpleasant grate of metal on metal.

She blinks water out of her eyes. “Eren,” she says, supporting Auruo's weight as he flags against her, eyes half-lidded, the poison taking its toll on his cold-weakened and fight-weakened body.

He sees one of her boots; the other, awkwardly twisted, disappears under a chunk of rubble. Eren swears and wades over, lifting his feet high to walk properly. And when his hands touch the cold stone, he hears Petra suck in a deep breath to prepare for what he's about to do.

He's got more grip and leverage than she has sprawled on the ground, back propped against the remnants of a house wall, so the crumbling stone rolls easily off her when he pulls, sinking a bit into the mud when he drops it just clear of her foot. But though it comes away easy, the sight of her crumpled boot still makes his stomach turn.

She's smiling weakly when he looks to her for signs of pain. Somewhat dreamily, and her eyes are unfocused, but a droplet of rain striking her nose clears them. “Are they... okay?” she asks, straining up and turning to try to see over the wall.

“No,” he says, and it's truthful; he's swallowing back _something,_ maybe tears or maybe a pained yell because he knows a lost cause when he sees one, sees Auruo's breathing grow more shallow and the way Petra's fingers seem to loosen. “It's a basilisk – we can't make a dent unless we strike its mouth and we don't have the range.”

He chokes on the next words because he is about to request her assistance but as a soldier she has _given_ it; she is here dying and he can't let her have peace until she's _done her part?_ It disgusts him that he needs to think in terms of usefulness.

What else can they –

Her hands close around the one of his that she can reach and it pulls Eren from his thoughts like a fishing line reeling him to shore, and he shakes his head to clear it.

“Help me,” she pleads. “Help me stand and I will put this creature to death.”

_How?_ he wants to ask because they've rolled the dice and the numbers have come up against them; one bolt is not going to kill a snake the size of twelve houses set end-to-end and she is mad, she is mad and she's hit her head and she is  _dying,_ he can see that but she pledges her service one more time. Looking up at him she curls her right fist before her heart and smiles.

Before he can take her hand and carry her weight she leans over to Auruo and whispers in his ear.

He cannot hear what she is saying and it doesn't occur to him to eavesdrop, but the other soldier, the man with bloodstained pale hair matted and darkened by the rain, inclines his head to what she's saying in a rough jerk of a nod.

Petra sighs and purses her lips, clenching her teeth behind them; her fingers find a bolt in her quiver and she draws it out.

And plunges it into Auruo's wounded leg without hesitation.

“Petra -” Eren starts, reaching, but the shout Auruo holds in his throat stops him. He knew of this and accepted this and this is what she asked him for?

She yanks the bolt out once it's been coated in his blood, glistening in the rain and coming off drop by drop. And though her hands shake, she leans over to press her lips against Auruo's temple and touch his hand; he is dying too and he leaves them with this, and Eren watches his last breath leave him as he takes Petra's hand and raises her up.

The funnel of his energy is as natural as his altered gait when holding her up; he begins passing what he has of strength left to her so that she may carry as much weight on her good foot as possible, and together they hobble through the mud, guarding a bloodied bolt between them and letting their cloaks catch the rain.

“Manticore poison,” she says to him, gripping his shoulder with the arm she has slung over him. “Basilisks are immune to their own venom, but not others'.”

It's brilliant. It's brilliant and it comes at the cost of Auruo's life carrying it for them and it's brilliantly calculating of Petra to use her partner's blood for such a purpose, watching him die before her eyes and steeling herself to accomplish this duty.

Eren is in awe of her at this moment. Even as she stiffens and looks up, a caught breath stirring in her ribcage.

“Corporal,” she whispers, and Eren tightens his hold on her.

“Right.” She nods against the side of his face. “This is... up to me.”

Gunther falls back when he sees them; he is not much use at the moment anyway, as the basilisk holds its head in the air, tracking Levi's erratic movement with its eyes and hoping to freeze him in place to eat him. There is nothing either of the soldiers on the ground can do against the hide they can reach, so Erd continues yelling up at the beast to draw its attention as Gunther assumes some of Petra's weight as well, allowing her to lean on him as she pulls her crossbow from her back.

“Poisoned bolt,” Eren explains at his furrowed brow, and he can see the pieces fit together in Gunther's head as he glances back to whence they came with a pensive expression.

“You need a clean shot,” he says out loud to Petra who guards the crossbow and bolt with the upper half of her body lest the rain wash it away.

She nods.

Levi is airborne on his Talent distracting the basilisk from them on the ground but distraction isn't what they need. If they can get its jaws open long enough for Petra to fire...

They have only one shot and timing is critical. Paramount. If Levi knows he can arrange the opportunity.

He thinks Petra inhales against him, perhaps feeling his Talent spiral out as he reaches for Levi. Words shouted will get lost in the storm and he knows what to do to communicate with him; he knows this is his use and his part and he plays it.

_Petra has a poisoned bolt,_ he thinks at Levi, watching his form; the soldier is not novice enough to pause during an evasive maneuver to think over the words and he executes a perfect corkscrew to Eren's eyes, flying just above the basilisk's nose and drawing a furied hiss from the great creature.  _She needs to hit the inside of its mouth._

_Understood,_ Levi thinks back and Eren blinks – he hadn't realized he had closed his eyes – and nods.

“He knows. He's creating an opening.”

Gunther looks at him in confusion at the same moment Petra relaxes slightly against him.

“Thank you,” she says and her tone seems... important for some reason but he cannot place it, only pushes another bit of his strength into her so that her arms might steady.

Levi stops dead in midair and Eren's breath catches watching his form; surely the basilisk will impale him if he does not continue evading? He forces down the urge to yell and bites his tongue because beyond else he  _trusts_ the corporal but what the hell will getting killed help them to -

Only his dominant sword is unsheathed and he cannot understand why that is. The creature fixes its eyes on the tiny figure high in the rainy sky above them but Levi does not stiffen, not stupid enough to meet its golden eyes with his own.

The creature lashes out to catch the soldier in its jaws almost faster than they can see and the breath they draw together is painful.

Erd is running back to them now, unable to do anything else; he notes the crossbow and darts out of the way, taking up position behind Petra as if the shield of their bodies will protect her and protect the line of her shot.

Eren cannot see Levi. He cannot see Levi amidst the closed-mouth shaking of the serpent's head and  _is this really it?_ Is this how it all ends? Plucked out of the sky like an apple from a tree –

If snakes could roar the basilisk would shatter their eardrums but the pained hiss still causes the ground at their feet to quiver as it opens its mouth in pain. And between its fangs they see it –

Levi's sword sunk into the top of its mouth, enough length protruding that the snake holds its mouth open by several feet lest the closing snap of its jaws drive the sword through its head.

And next to it he himself – the soldier, Eren's soldier, pushing up on the roof of its mouth with as much force as he can muster, a jagged tear at the shoulder of his cloak and jacket visible as the basilisk's head dips toward the ground, toward them, intent on killing the little nuisances for the trouble they have caused it.

As it slithers toward them erratically Levi allows himself to fall from its downturned mouth, plummeting to the ground almost faster than he can catch himself; the focused gust of air kicks out a wave of mud and water from under him and he stumbles as he touches down but Eren cannot run to his aid.

Petra raises her crossbow as it slinks closer and when he looks her eyes are hardened.

Gunther and Erd stand in support at her right and behind her, ready to catch her should she fall. Eren holds her weight and her left arm against his shoulders and she aims with her right, her arm steadier than he's ever seen it, leveled at the basilisk.

The very second Eren can see the individual scales between its nostrils sparkle she pulls the trigger and catapults the bolt with a snap.

– It soars through the fangs of the basilisk and sinks into the fleshy roof of its mouth just past the tip of Levi's sword.

With a sound like screeching twisting metal it rears up in pain, readies itself to lurch forward and attack and then –

A great shiver laces up its body from the tip of its tail they cannot see tucked under the ground, under the house from whence it came, up to its nostrils; in confusion its tongue darts out to scent the air and before them it _withers,_ the life-reddened muscle dissolving into ash carried away by the wind and water.

The life burned out of it more quickly than seemed possible, they do not react fast enough to its form beginning to fall towards them.

Erd tries to haul them to safety by whatever pieces of clothing he can grasp but he stumbles and something tears and then they're slipping; they're falling together and Eren can see nothing and hear nothing but the sudden rush of air, the sudden tempest that whips up around them, scatters them and pushes them away as the basilisk's husk falls over the demolished alley.

The piles of stone that escaped its arc of devastation crumble now and he hears that, he thinks, cracking and falling under the weight of the great snake but it's the last he hears as his ears begin to ring.

He can barely stand before his leg vibrates and gives out under him; if he hit a wall when Levi pushed them back he cannot tell. But he must find them. He must find _someone._ They are meant to live and so he must find them...

Unhearing, unseeing, only feeling, Eren drags his leg through the mud and reaches out with groping hands.

He trips over what he thinks is a discarded pack once, too delirious to wonder about the horses. He must find them. He must find them.

He must find them.

He  _must –_

Next he knows there's mud on his face and he's trying to wipe it off with cold hands that feel bloated and clammy and he hits _soft._

Grabs and gropes and feels it, wet cloth but cloth all the same, tears at it until it comes loose in his hand and he cannot see but he can feel, can feel warm skin even to his cold-stricken fingers.

He is dizzy and losing hold fast but he _pushes_ where he feels hot fevered skin lets his fingers dig into flesh cries out when his stomach gives a pained jerk and _something_ opens up, slides aside, and he is warmed by the life that pours out of him leaving only cold in its wake.

Eren's other arm gives out and he lands with his face pressed into mud and everything feels cold as he sinks sinks sinks with his cold hands on warm and his last memory

the very last

is of the shadow of a twitch against him.

 


	11. Apocalypsis, Final Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions rise and fall like ocean tides. Or, the feathering of new-bird trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD I'M BREATHING REALLY HEAVILY RN  
> i just speedwrote the entire latter half of this chapter here we fucking go okay
> 
> the usual, school etc. fucking me over  
> done w my first full year of college now tho hopefully next chapter comes sooner (WE BACK TO ARMIN HOLLA HOLLA ARE U PUMPED BC I AM)  
> anyway yes this fic will not be dropped till its done i promise u that  
> we're prob about halfway through right here so
> 
> heartfelt thanks go to:  
> hamil/saru (idec i call you those) [[ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SaruMisaMi)/[tumblr](http://hamilkarbarkas.tumblr.com)] for being absolutely fabulous and a humongous cheerleader  
> FT [[ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FarmlandTensions)/[tumblr](http://farmlandtensions.tumblr.com)] for being incredibly delightful and also a longstanding cheerleader  
> gladie [[ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/gladiatorAviator)/[tumblr](http://gladiatoraviator.tumblr.com)] for her amazing and enduring support (i love Gladie very much)  
> throne [[ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/throneofwaste)/[tumblr](http://tetrahexahedral.tumblr.com)] for their ceaseless endorsement and continuously egging me onto worse and worse things (please read [The Minutes of the Red People](http://archiveofourown.org/works/915758) if you want to enter a sweet hell, i sometimes include small shout-outs and Suffer when throne plugs me so here's my revenge plug oh yes)  
> ANYWAY THANK YOU AND ENJOY!!

_The air is hot heavy dark and full of smoke that burns his eyes and his throat as he breathes but he does not care; he does not care that souls beat past in choking rhythm and screaming cry and he does not care that the blood stains his hands, cupped in them a heart a weak muscle and he runs thumbs presses in rubs lips teeth against and swallows_

_down the flames, dragon-flame in his belly shoulders aching rising free over the treetops (but iron chain tethered to that castle in the distance, that stain on the horizon) and this is wind and this is (is this) what he was_ _**meant to –** _ _is it really?is it? –_

_but then, it_

_shatters into pieces pieces raining to earth glinting in fire he sees a broken figure reflected in one, slumped against a trunk and he breathes in and_ roars and

 _his name bellows forth and then he's_ jerking awake grasping onto the wrist of his soldier, bleary eyed not collecting what he sees and what he sees is _the face of panic careful visage shattered and he is cradled to chest on forest floor and he falls back back_

_back_

_backbackback_

_pressed against a wall a great unnamed_ someone _looming above him the force of denial leaves his edges blurry and he swirls away, away,_

 _a ways to go before shinganshina and this kid's trying to get personal and now's really not the time, really not, but he finds himself answering as easily as he would deny and the question is not intrusive at all but yet something leaves him something is taken with his word and he lets it go freely lets it wing away and escape what_ is

to come, and

_it comes upon them in a mighty roar of death and he quails fur bristling but he cannot flee; cannot when the one thing that will save them is entrenched in bindings of ground and water and he stands between them and that's always been fine, for as long as he's known enough to differentiate “fine” from “not fine” as long as he's been patched together with pieces of people a boy might remember once and been patched together with a soul he might remember were he not a curse with paws and teeth and claws_

_having cut trenches in the wood door he shoves it open with a shoulder and casts his burden onto the sofa inside, presses damp hands against cheeks feeling for warmth feeling neck for pulse mouth for air a steady_

_drip_

_of mud-blood-water tapping onto lids of closed eyes but brushed away with a thumb calloused as gentle a thumb_ _**pressing into sinew squelching against his teeth and –**_

 

 

 

 

 

Eren jerks awake with a hand groping the smooth flesh of his breast and his lungs burning as if he had drowned. 

He fights the urge to cough, piecing his surroundings together before making noise to announce himself; he sits up gingerly, feeling the ratty blanket fall away from him and feeling also the chill that steals over him when it does. It sits heavy on his legs and he nearly pulls it up again but the creak of his bones, the weakness of his muscles, distracts him. 

The dull ache starts to spread up his neck and across his temples. His eyes burn with tears that well, immediate, throat burning as if acrid smoke has taken hold in his lungs, and then his body convulses with the force of the cough – the coughing fit it dissolves into.

He is shaking by the end of it, hands quivering and he links his fingers, drawing a rattling breath and pursing his lips to keep it inside.

As he gasps he feels something press against his lower back and he nearly jumps – would have if not for the other hand that reaches for his chest, applies the tiniest hair of pressure to imply he should lie down, as necessary for guidance as it is for holding him together.

Through the tears and amidst his eyelashes that stick together as he opens his eyes he glimpses and understands; the lance corporal perches beside him on the bed and lays him down with gentle arms even as Eren tenses against his cold hands.

“What -” is all he can rasp before he is laying with the ceiling above him, the rafters bare but still sturdy despite the time spent without care and attention.

His thoughts are spiraling ribbon, slipping from his fingers even as he tries to grab hold of them; he thinks that it is warm in this little house, and he hears the crackling of the fire and the sizzling of liquid only barely beyond the fraying sphere of his awareness.

Everything else is quiet. Much too quiet and his ears ring from how oppressive the silence that falls feels and his chest grows tight even as Levi presses the back of his hand to his forehead, more affectionate than he has possibly ever been; it slips his notice as Eren's voice croaks again, his throat dry.

“Where are they?”

There is no answer.

His eyes roll up to find Levi's stormy grey and the man does not meet the gaze with his own. He is looking straight over Eren, boring a hole in the wall across from him, and his hand feels cold and clammy against Eren's forehead.

There is no answer but it is answer enough.

The burning urge takes hold of him again and Eren jerks away from Levi's hand and curls into himself, hacking the dry dust out of his lungs and his throat; he needs water, and he thinks he might have whispered as much but he is unsure, and unsure and left to that ungrounding when Levi leaves his side.

Time stretches into everything and nothing all at once and maybe Eren's been there for a few minutes with his head tucked between his knees, he doesn't know – but what he does know is that it surprises him yet doesn't altogether when there's a wet rag being held to his mouth, a scrap of dark green fabric.

Like his mother had done when he had been sick and young to keep him from drinking too much at once.

The cracked pain of his throat begins to fade as his lips pull water from the cloth, but Levi still averts his eyes, Eren peering up through his knees to look at the man – this man, his soldier.

His eyes fall upon the tear at his shoulder, the jagged edges of cloak and shirt alike jutting up and away, exactly the size and shape of the cut of a basilisk fang.

Eren inhales sharply through his nose.

“You're not dead,” he says, as if observing this for the first time, something like wonder evident in his voice though the muddy taste of the cloth on his tongue dampens his words. “How are you not dead?”

For the first time, Levi looks at him. Really looks at him, and the weight of his eyes alone pins Eren down as if a dragon encases him in its talons and breathes into his face.

“Ask yourself that,” he says, finally, though Eren's eyes water from the time he spends without blinking, awaiting the answer. “Ask _yourself_ why neither of us lie outside in the mud.”

It comes to him as if in a half-lit memory: the trace of damp, fleeing warmth under his palms, pouring everything he had had to give into the flesh his fingers tried to grip. It comes to him just the same as a memory that is certainly not his – groping in the rain and the filth and hauling the brat up by the collar, shoulder pulsing raw and new and stumbling through the square to the first house without a hole in the roof.

Eren looks down at his hands, pulling the scrap of cloak out of his mouth and letting it fall onto the bedcovers. His palms look pale but he sees the veins outlined underneath, the dirt caked under his jagged fingernails, the blood caught in the creases of his skin.

He looks at his hands and he thinks _these do not look like healing hands._ They shouldn't be, because they aren't _enough_ and he did not want the burden of this, something other than human and altogether _too_ human, too human to make the choice of who lives and who dies without tasting the blood on his palms and lips like copper under his tongue.

“You drained yourself entirely,” Levi drawls, reaching with his left hand to trace the unbroken skin of his shoulder absently. “Eat, and then sleep. I will keep watch.”

Eren follows the movement with his eyes, the only thing he can focus on; he nods, as he thinks he is supposed to do, and then leans back against the wall bordering the bed with his legs crossed as he watches Levi prepare a serving of whatever hunters' potluck he had managed to conjure.

There is a pack leaning on the side of the hearth and Eren refuses to wonder whose it is.

Levi treats him gently but clinically, ensuring his hands are steady enough to hold a bowl and spoon before he turns away, allows him to support himself. It is both closer than they have ever been and absolutely too distant for Eren to stomach.

Thankfully the soup tastes like nothing but warm water and he gulps it down past the blockage in his throat. And thankfully Levi watches the flames crackle rather than the color slowly returning to Eren's cheeks, sitting in an old and ratty armchair with his knees spread wide.

Neither of them speak again over the course of the night, even though Eren wakes three or four times to see the fire winding down gently and the silhouette of Levi's form, outlined by moonlight, displayed in the small house's open doorway.

Instead Eren is plagued with strange dreams, ashen phantoms weaving in and out of what his conscious mind registers. Once he thinks Petra touches his forehead with cool fingers; another he swears he sees great wings made of falling ash furl from Levi's shoulders, and he closes his eyes against the image and buries his nose into the old threadbare blanket once more.

 

 

 

 

 

His mouth tastes of blood when he finally, suddenly, awakens and he leans off the bed in a daze to spit it out –

“Wh'?” he tries to gasp, choking on his own spittle and curling in on himself to control the grievous hacking that follows.

They skate and echo over the bare walls, curtains moth-eaten to falling, every piece of furniture cloaked in a thick layer of dust – but he knows this place, would know it with his eyes closed and his ears blocked, only fingers to feel and seek.

He remembers cutting apples at the counter, watching sunsets through the window – sleeping on this couch with the warm fire crackling –

stumbling onto his mother's broken body one afternoon with bundles of kindling in his arms, his teeth sinking into the flesh of his thumb to stop him from screaming.

Over the sound of his lungs trying their damnedest to escape from his body he thinks he hears a rhythmic tapping from above him, from the attic of his house; before his eyes, bleary as they are with sleep and tears from the harsh coughing, the trapdoor in the kitchen's ceiling pulls open.

Levi touches down, clouds of dust stirring around his boots, with the unnatural grace Eren has come almost to expect. Almost.

“You're awake,” his soldier states, an expression foreign to Eren flitting across his face. “Still delirious?”

“I don't think so,” is how he manages to respond, clearing his throat roughly twice or thrice and still tasting blood on his tongue. “How long –“

“Two days,” Levi says, not looking at him; his fingers pull at his clothing, shedding dust from the fabric folds. “Next time, just don't bother.”

Eren's reaction is a wave of heat that shows in his face and his voice. “I _saved_ you,” he grinds out between clenched teeth, but Levi interrupts him before he can continue on the tirade that is about to be unleashed. 

“Is this your house, Yeager?” he growls back like a dire wolf coiled to spring. Eren remembers in a flash a letter he held between his fingers in Levi's tent.

“Yes,” he responds, the anger washed out of him as if by a burst of cleansing rain.

Their eyes meet, as if attracted, for a long moment; Eren is bent with his torso near-pressed to the couch's bottom, and Levi stands with his weight on one leg.

Self-consciously, Eren straightens, albeit slowly, one of his hands finding its way to the key that hangs 'round his neck and thumbing over its shaft. He is here, after all this time. He is _here,_ he thinks, the words gaining meaning as he turns them over and over again in his head.

It is impossible to think that Levi stands here, in Eren's childhood home, with his arms folded, waiting for Eren to unlock a door with a key he's had strung around his neck for nearly as long as he can remember. It is impossible and yet it is true, as his fingers press against the warm metal.

Eren tears the key loose with a yank and the cord casts itself against his fingers and palm, like thick, dark veins webbing across his skin.

Warm metal is curled into his fist as he looks up at Levi.

“What am I going to find?” he asks, pensive.

“What your father kept from you,” Levi says, storm-grey eyes flicking to the door to the lower stairwell. “And whatever it is that Grisha Yeager gave his life to protect.”

 

 

 

 

 

Neither are answers Eren wanted, he thinks, turning the key in the lock with a low and final _click._

It swings open before his touch, balanced impeccably as always even though the hinges have rusted; Levi is hovering just behind his shoulder, grim in the half-light, his face gaunt-looking and cast of shadows when Eren glances back one more time. 

“Go,” Levi says, and he does.

Candle-first, he steps soft and gentle across the threshold.

The blackness of his basement seems to encroach on the tiny little flame more viciously, hungrily than normal. Eren grits his teeth, closing his eyes to remember the room's layout; he has foggier memories of this place than of the rest of his childhood home, but he _had_ been in his father's workplace before, when –

when –

“ _Ah,_ ” he says aloud, his free hand flying up to his forehead as if to see for himself whether or not it had split in two, as the sudden pulse had felt.

“Eren,” Levi responds, sounding if he were about to say something else, but had swallowed it back in between his teeth like a scalding gulp of tea.

Eren wonders idly if it burns his throat, but does not respond beyond lifting the candle a little higher, feeling his eyebrows wrinkle together as he shrugs off the jolt of pain.

His footsteps leave tracks in the dust on the floorboards; the lance corporal is a welcome presence at his back, though he is also the weight of responsibility – the reminder that they are running short on time, that he is here for a reason.

There are empty boxes scattered to and fro that his feet brush against as he steps gently across the creaking floor; the bookshelves, too, stand half-empty though he remembers the spines standing shoulder to shoulder.

“Something is wrong,” he says doubtfully, though he has no words for the way the stale air tastes on his tongue other than such, other than _wrong wrong wrong_ like a litany that makes his teeth clench.

“What?” Levi responds, looks behind himself (from the swish of his clothing, Eren figures); he does not dismiss Eren's worries nor does he assuage them, and Eren wonders why he expected anything otherwise.

The corner of a chair denotes the desk just inside his pool of light, and Eren remembers this work bench. Vividly – the stench of burning herbs –

Levi touches his shoulder and shakes him from his thoughts, the bits of himself and his memories that are screaming for him to look at them. He can see nothing of his soldier's face past the sharp profile of his nose, washed to orange in the candlelight.

The old wood is colored the same, once-polished but now dirty with age; Eren's gaze runs up the side of the desk, until it falls upon something strange.

A box lays open, covered in the same layer of dust, in the center of the surface. Inset in its velvet interior are a syringe and a vial; the liquid in the vial shimmers, welcoming, in the light of the candle.

“Don't _touch it,_ ” Levi hisses suddenly, grasping onto his upper arm with all the fierceness of a crow digging its talons in.

Eren pauses with his fingers merely a hair from the glass. He hadn't noticed himself edging closer.

With a swallow he relaxes under Levi's grip, setting the candle on the table and letting his arms fall to his sides.

“What is it?” he thinks to ask, shuffling to the side as Levi shoves him over with his hip and arm.

“I don't know,” he confesses without looking anywhere besides at the box. His fingers touch the wood brims hesitantly. “But someone wanted us to find it.”

“My dad?” Eren's knuckles turn white gripping the back of the chair before him. _Did he know?_

Levi ignores the speculation and, moving swiftly, latches the box with a low and final _click._ “Hanji will know. This is her realm. I do what I'm told and I don't ask questions.”

 _Bullshit,_ Eren thinks, aware of the truth. But he falls into step behind Levi as his pseudo-superior hefts the latched box into his arm and heads for the door.

“Is that it?” Eren asks, an edge of incredulity shimmering between them. Everything he has been through for the last week and more, for one box?

“We've done enough chasing of ghosts for a lifetime,” Levi says, firm but hollow, like the termite-riddled carcass of a once-proud tree, a convincing fake that bears no weight.

He speaks without looking back.

Eren watches his shoulders silhouetted in the door for a long minute before he licks his thumb, dousing the candle's flame between his fingers.

 

 

 

 

 

It seems Levi has a plan; he works with busy hands tucking the box into the one undamaged pack between the two of them, says nothing to Eren who stands to the side of his living room as he ensures the fire is out and their things are gathered.

Eren closes his eyes and rubs his forehead with his palms.

Now they make their way to Trost to rendezvous with Levi's contact. Then the return to Sina District, to Mitras – and that is the end. His debt paid.

 _Is that true?_ he wonders, frowning to himself. There is more going on here than he has cared to notice, to recognize – even ignoring what he has learned about himself, what of him has changed.

This venture has changed him as surely as the day of his mother's murder.

And how long until he is released from its talons?

“Our traipsing around earlier,” Levi begins, snapping Eren out of his thoughts, “called most of Shinganshina's monster population to us.”

The soldier straightens, having shouldered the pack. “This town's a ghost town now. It's us and the horses.”

“You're leaving them here,” Eren says, bitter but not angry. He is not speaking of the horses.

Levi turns away from him. He says nothing.

Eren has done much of staring at Levi's tacit back in the last while. And if the slope to his shoulders, usually squared and defiant, tells him anything, there is little to be gained from continuing down this route.

He closes his eyes and imagines their spirits standing in line with his soldier.

He wasn't strong enough. He isn't strong enough, for this.

 _I'm sorry,_ he thinks, remembering the smiling tilt of Petra's lips.

 

 

 

 

 

Less than half a mile south of town is the end of the Maria District. 

Eren remembers no one in living memory who had crossed the boundary and come back to tell the tale. Therefore it perplexes him that Levi, vaulting onto his horse first, leads them due south without flinching, offering only “there is something you need to see” as an explanation.

There is nothing to be seen. With Shinganshina's outskirts behind them, all that stretches before them are plains of dead grasses stretching to the brim of the world and beyond.

Perhaps in another time and another life he would wonder what there is outside of this cage – but now?

Now all he wants, he thinks as he strokes Mina's mane idly, is to forget.

There is no path, but Levi leads them forward nonetheless, spurring his horse on though the great black beast tries time and again to turn back to shelter.

Eren wonders what they sense. Mina tosses her head, dislodging his fingers, as the stale air begins to curl into a sour-smelling breeze.

Levi's boots thump against the ground as he slides off his horse, twists his reins around one hand and guides the petulant animal forward; Eren follows suit, though the prickle of misgivings begins to take hold in his stomach.

The air feels heavy, as if it's pressing down on him more and more, whispering for him to turn back, turn back. There is nothing for him here.

Mina snorts angrily, the whites of her eyes visible and froth gathering at her bit.

“ _Levi,_ ” Eren calls, the wind picking up and tossing his hair back. The soldier ahead of him does not flinch, pressing forward with all the slowness of wading through molasses, as if the fabric bolt edges of the world had been gathered together and sewn on top of each other.

With a chilling shiver Eren remembers that first night in Maria, both the water-in-his-lungs feeling of the decay settling in his chest and the pieces of Levi he carries within himself even now – what Erwin had shown him on his first expedition.

The blinding brilliance that had changed everything.

They are walking into a tornado. Eren keeps desperate grip on Mina's reins, pulling her along behind him, his eyes watering too much to see Levi ahead of him. He knows this is the way though he cannot see for certain. Something hooked in his sternum pulls him forward even as his world tries its best to dig its talons into his spine, to pull him under.

He _needs_ to know what there is beyond this, the unnatural despair that has weighted his bones that he knows and recognizes only now, decay tugged from his lungs with the rest of his breath in the tempest leaving him without form, without thought.

Blackness encroaches and he screws his eyes shut –

 

 

 

 

 

– and tumbles forward onto the ground.

It takes a moment before he can lift himself on his scraped hands and dirty knees; he feels weak, breathing in deep, raw scrubbed-clean throat, a little light-headed and unbalanced.

A groan fights its way out of him as he sits back on his heels, opening his eyes slowly.

It is dark in here but beyond – beyond the light is piercing and white, and he inhales again and it's as if he is six or seven venturing out into the fields after the rain, before the decay, before _everything_ , filling his lungs with wet earth and the smell of rebirth.

Mina is not near, so he stands shakily, reaching out with one hand to touch the shadowed mass to his left – stone greets his fingertips, washed in dark to contrast the light outside, and he keeps one hand on the wall of the tunnel as he steps gingerly forward, balancing precariously like a fawn on new legs.

His eyes adjust gradually.

The whiteness that waits for him dims, reveals color – and when he steps out into the light of the sun he nearly trips as the weight of the world hits him square in the chest.

He breathes in deeply once more, relishing how his insides come alive with it, with the vibrancy of what he sees; bright emerald shrubbery and trees and _so so much_ foliage, colors in flowers he has never in all of his life seen, and how can he think of anything before now as _beautiful_ now that he has seen this?

Eren looks upon the forest as it was meant to be, leaves shimmering in the sunlight, and he remembers the trees the day of the dragon. He knows now that he has spent his life in gray.

He's smiling. And then he's laughing to himself – first a quiet hum that then tumbles in on itself and builds and builds until he's laughing hysterically, startling small animals in the underbrush as he leans against stone struggling to catch his breath, looking up at the sky and at the wall he leans against that towers high, high into the air.

Caught up in the brilliance of it all he doesn't even wonder how he came to be here; he is, he simply is, and that is enough and more than it has ever been. He could stay like this for the rest of his life.

It is like pure opium or the euphoria of suffocation and it tingles in his blood.

He has fallen to his knees with his fingers caressing the blades of grass, inhaling scents he has no name for – no analogue, even – and there's a _tug_ in his chest that pulls his head up, gazing into the dense copse of trees dusted just beyond the wall, like a spread skirt dappled with sunlight.

Eren feels him before he sees him, solid and warm and _there_ against his consciousness, and time isn't making sense because he's up on his feet and moving while he still feels the grass on his hands and his thoughts are moving in circles feeding upon themselves like Ouroboros and his tail; he is laughing Levi's name as his soldier drops the horses' reins and then he _smiles._

And. Eren's insides churn to butter, and he really _looks_ at him, the man before him, real and alive and there's a singing and bubbling in his blood like a merry stream that leaps at the glitter in stormy-grey eyes, and then.

_Yes._

He curls his hand in Levi's shirt and leans down to him, the few inches that separate them – pauses with the edge of his lips against his soldier's, breathing in the breath that Levi quietly exhales, asking, waiting.

Neither flinches; neither advances, and they are frozen in this moment in time and space, simply existing.

Levi slips his hands, slowly, hesitantly, into Eren's hair – moving up from the base of his neck, caressing his weakest point with the barest tips of his fingers, into the greasy and grimy strands of his hair, tangling his knuckles among them.

“Brat,” he whispers into the air between them, Eren inhaling the word through his parted lips – and it tastes like sweet tobacco-smoke.

It's the way he tastes too when he finally _finally_ pulls them together, open-mouthed and desperate and then the distinction between them blurs and he is feeling what Levi feels, thinking his thoughts or lack thereof and when his fingers tighten he is unsure whether they touch hair or linen.

For a heartbeat, between a tongue pressing to the roof of a mouth and a whispered groan, one of them thinks _this is wrong_ , but the pulsing in their blood – and Levi's is screeching too in response to the growl of Eren's, the low sound in his throat he makes as he bears down – washes the thought away like flotsam in the flood.

Dimly aware of the horses it is either Eren or Levi that maneuvers the pair of them in slow steps back, back towards the trunk of a tree; before Levi's back hits the bark he lowers his hands to Eren's shoulders and flips them around, slamming Eren's head against the wood none-too-gently.

The sharp pain adds more fire to the inferno building under their skin; filled with a rising, nigh-insatiable need, Eren presses his hands to his soldier's ribs and pulls him closer, arching up to meet him, sucking in a greedy breath that tastes and smells like the musk of Levi's skin.

 _Oh,_ that contact sends a thrum through him – Levi's weight bears down against him and pins him against the tree, and Eren's hands fly to its trunk to keep himself from toppling over, scrabbling against the ridged bark for purchase.

Levi tilts his head just a little more to the side as his hands move to Eren's chest, rubbing his tongue against the underside of Eren's as his fingers skate down the front of his shirt, tracing the abdominal muscles that had lately begun to show defined ridges.

Eren loses conscious thought for a moment; when time resolves itself into coherent shapes again Levi is against the tree and that is _not a bad position,_ one of them is thinking though he is unsure which, _not a bad position at all._

The pale skin of his shoulder, the one that had had a basilisk tooth in it two days prior, is unmarred but the tear in his clothing allows it to glimmer through like the full moon amidst a starless night; it consumes Eren's attention till all he can wonder about is the sound his soldier would make if he...

Levi hisses and rasps and tugs at the small hairs on the back of Eren's neck when he runs his tongue over it, grazes his teeth just barely over the prone skin, and it sets Eren's blood to rushing. Instinctively he grinds down, pushing his hips against Levi's, and. Wow.

He tries that again and watches as Levi's lips tighten and pale like a fresh scar. There is something raw and needing in his hooded eyes, sunken beyond his long lashes; even as his mouth flattens his pupils dilate, consuming the irises, and for a moment Eren swears his eyes are black as ink.

He promptly loses hold on conscious thought as Levi pulls Eren to him with his foot hooked around his calf, steering him with a hand that's found a spidery hold on the ridge of his hip and the hem of his pants (and he is unsure when that happened though everything is too much all at once) to rut up against Levi's front.

Eren's vision goes spotted with the heat and the friction, a surge of pain accompanying the pivoting of his hips as his shaft rubs up hard against the scratchy cloth of his pants. Everything is too hot and too close and –

his throat closes abruptly when Levi's hips roll down to meet his again, two layers of clothes the only separation between Eren's length and the hard pulsing heat that is his soldier's, and the distance is both too far and not enough.

Another roll and Eren is a ship capsizing. His lungs ache with gasping breaths and sounds he hears from outside himself, and he is all shivers with every thrust and scrape and he needs, he needs.

He grasps for flotsam in the flood.

His teeth sink into the basilisk bite shoulder and Levi gives a great whine, prey thrashing in his jaws; the heady scent of sex mingles with the blood in Eren's mouth and he chokes on it, drowns in the sensory brilliance of copper and sweat.

Levi, pinned to the tree by Eren's arms, cants his hips forward again as a shuddering sigh escapes his nose. Eren feels his climax and it feeds into his own – his teeth sink even deeper into Levi's flesh as he tenses and then gasps, rivulets of blood spilling past his lips as he loses feeling in every extremity.

He is numb and sagging, trapping Levi to the tree with the weight of his chest, covered in filth and tingling.

The weight of it hits him like a dragon's paw.

Eren rocks back, swallowing hard, tasting rich blood and cringing.

What was that?

What had gotten into him?

Had Levi and he just –

His soldier's fingers crunch bark ridges as he pushes himself away from the tree; there is something deep and unreadable in his dark eyes, just as grey even amidst the emerald foliage – the pupils are still blown but they are hard as diamond, and meeting them creates a coldness in Eren's chest like inhaling a snowstorm.

He doesn't stop Levi when the latter makes his escape, leaping into the trees with the aid of his Talent, kicking up fallen leaves in the breeze in his wake.

Nor does he stop himself from sinking to his knees in the moments that follow, ignoring the state of himself after the last few minutes, hearing roaring silence though birds sing to one another in praise of the sun.

 

 

 

 

 

It is a time before he stands and it would not have happened, he thinks, if not for the horses; Mina noses at his hair with a quiet snuffle when the sun has moved beyond the trees, remarkably patient, likely content just to _be_ with no impending doom to run toward.

Levi's horse does not approach him, even when Eren stands, shifting uncomfortably in his sticky and drying pants.

He needs to wash himself, and the horses likely need to drink, basking in the sweltering heat for so long; there is only one path to take, and it is deeper into the forest.

He can either wait for Levi to return or continue moving.

Would Levi return? Without a squad to wait for, without an expedition to mount, he no longer needs his horse. Simply the box from Eren's basement – the boy himself is no longer necessary.

Habitually Eren reaches for the key slung around his neck. His fingers skate against his empty collarbone.

His muscles are tense, unwilling to cooperate, and he leans on Mina as much as he leads her, continuing down the path descending into darkness; Levi's horse follows him, a massive shadow.

He wonders where Levi had been taking their horses when he stumbled through that gate – when the roaring of his blood had overtaken his mind, leaving him nothing more than an animal.

The taste of blood lingers in his mouth and he nearly gags when it ghosts across his tongue. Not an animal, he amends, looking down at his hands, one curled in Mina's soft leather reins and the other hanging at his side.

A monster.

Even now this place tugs at his mind, lures him in with scents that remind him of his mother's long hair and gathering flowers in the first bloom of spring with Armin and Mikasa; he cannot submit. He cannot become again what he became earlier, what he did not understand – still does not understand.

Perhaps it terrifies him most that he did not notice his wolfish slavering till longer after it was too late, till Levi had fled into the underbrush like a frightened deer from a manic hunter. That something as harmless as a simple _fascination_ – as if the word might separate him from the deed, from the evidence of it that sticks to his thighs still – might twist him into such a creature.

He cannot trust himself, he knows, swallowing against the tang of blood and sweat he wishes he could wash from his mouth.

And, certainly, he can no longer trust Levi – who brought him here for a reason. Perhaps to humble him. Perhaps to terrify him. Or, perhaps, to abandon him here – to leave the tasteless evidence of any wrongdoing, the last dregs of the Yeager family, in a place no one would think to look.

A garden beyond the edge of the world. A fitting hell.

 

 

 

 

 

The sound of water reaches him before he sees it – burbling merrily along deep in the trees, the sound reminding him of the hot heady feeling of his blood hours ago. It makes him feel ill again.

He has been walking for an hour at least; the branches above him have grown near into a roof of laced leaves, but the reddening sky peeks through in small skylight intervals. The birds he's heard incessantly have begun to quiet with the onset of dusk; a slight breeze stirs the air now, having been still all afternoon.

This place is breathtakingly beautiful, and Eren thinks for a moment that he wouldn't mind dying here. He has seen colors he never thought existed – but why beyond the Districts? Why through a gate in a giant stone wall that masquerades from the inside as leagues upon leagues of dead plains?

He does not know near enough to theorize. He wishes Hanji were here, though the woman with her thick glasses always seems to be looking at him as if he were held in a cage.

How right he was, he thinks for a moment, and wonders how much she knew – knows – about what he is. More than he does, surely.

He will be able to think straighter once he's washed himself and his pants of crusted semen.

The river – scarcely more than a stream running over large, rounded rocks – glimmers through the last trunks of trees, when the path opens onto a small grassy clearing beneath the cathedral sky. It is a beautiful sight but Eren pushes off Mina's shoulder, drops her reins, and hurries to the bank without even looking up at the wispy clouds that make the sky look as if it holds audience for angels.

He doesn't even pause to ensure he's alone. Of course he is alone. He has been abandoned here like this, like a dog in a field – and the water runs cold around his knees as he steps in, pushing the sodden fabric to his legs and raising gooseflesh in miniature pebbles on his skin.

Eren steps out of his pants, the plain linen undershorts, and pins them both under a rock near his foot. The breeze is chill against his thighs, cooling with the disappearing sun, and Eren crouches down so as to submerge himself to the waist in the stream.

Within a minute he feels chilled to the bone and deeper and he figures it has been long enough. He wrings out his sullied clothes as best he can, shaking them out in the air and draping them over his arm in lieu of a railing – he hadn't thought this far ahead, thought to wonder if he could possibly get hypothermia or if it would just heal right up.

He wouldn't mind dying here, he thinks, even if he does die. So he slips back into his sodden freezing clothes, every single inch of cloth clinging to his skin, and frowns at Mina who seems to be staring at him as if in disbelief.

Levi's horse pays no attention to him. His eyes, the big dark brute's, are trained on the sky above them, which draws an exquisite sort of grimace from Eren's lips.

Even the horse had known before he did, he grouses, ignoring _entirely_ the hard truth that he simply was not trustworthy. Both ignorant and without compassion for those he didn't understand.

Eren thinks then about Petra, standing with his hands tangled in Mina's mane; his heart gives a peculiar jerk at the thought of the woman's smile, at the wondering wandering question: was she ever fearful of him, of his anger?

He hadn't taken the chance to say goodbye.

Had Petra ever seen this place? He doubts it, and then considers what a shame that is.

At the bank sparse flowers grow; one, in particular, turns its face up toward the darkening sky like a young child looking for permanence in the stars. The set of its leaves remind him of gentle shoulders, and it seems as good a stand-in as any.

He crouches, his legs numb from the cold of his clothing, a tentative sad smile edging between his lips. “I'm sorry,” he says to the tiny plant, its white throat and yellow petals shivering slightly. “None of you deserved this. You all should be alive, and yet I...”

He can't hardly finish, swallowing thickly against the blockage in his throat that springs up.

A bird sounds sharply above him; one of the horses snorts.

It's less quiet than inside the Districts – there is little wildlife, now, the corruption spreading toward the Capital with each passing hour – but it is still peaceable here, comforting in a way he never imagined he would long for.

On the other hand he has not been truly alone in weeks. He would be ill-equipped to handle true silence, as in Shinganshina – now home to ghosts, all the beasts having fled or been killed.

It would be poetic to die there, instead. Though his thoughts on places to die are mostly immaterial – could he ever achieve the leverage necessary to snap his own neck? And would he truly, actually die?

Is the monster in the story allowed the assessment of its own inherent evil, the self-awareness such to determine its villainy?

He is being crude and exercising poor judgment. Never in his life has he understood the entirety of what is going on around him – however angry he feels, he should know better than to leap to conclusions, or to inflate his own importance in a situation that has little to nothing to do with him.

That's what it's all about, isn't it? He was a way and a reason to get into his basement.

Whatever that syringe is for, it is worth more than his pathetic life.

Eren sits next to the flower, huffing out a short chill breath.

He wonders how Armin and Mikasa are doing, whether they're still waiting on him to rescue then.

He could, maybe. Walk right in, his Talent dripping from his veins, as _he_ had done years ago in his own fogged memories. But the angry fire no longer runs alight in his stomach; embers remain, and he finds it difficult to assure himself that he had ever been out to save anyone after all.

That is, anyone other than himself; he who had refused a second chance and spent his years wallowing in the past.

His thoughts are crisp with unusual clarity of late, much more than the lethargy he had not noticed plagued his every step. He is thankful – though on the other hand it pains him, thinking so keenly of regret and remorse.

Perhaps it is a quality of this place, or perhaps he had been content to subject himself to the journey – as if it forced him to become someone other than he had been, someone better than he had been, with purpose beyond his own selfishness.

He knows now he is still that same boy, looking endlessly over his shoulder. He hates himself for it.

The horses have come to drink at the river downstream from him; Mina's flanks look dusky in the half-light, whereas the giant beside her is a shadow growing. Eren watches them for a time, wondering what it is they think, and how.

He cannot feel the feather-light pressure of their thoughts. Not as he could Thomas.

Not as he could Thomas –

He thinks back to what Levi had said, naming the wolf. _A gut feeling._

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“Godsdamnit,” Eren sighs aloud, burying his face into his hands. Yet another question with an answer that he had kept to himself like a greedy dragon with piles of gold; he should hardly be surprised at this point, given how little of this world he understands.

Did that mean Thomas had once been human?

How did something like that even happen? Did it signify something for other dire wolves?

Something solid and cold settles in Eren's stomach, and his spine tenses.

What of the rest of Shinganshina? Of all the monsters inside the Districts?

Had _they_ once been human?

If so – what had happened? What had happened to them, to become what they had? Harpies and dire wolves and manticores and _dragons_ –

Levi has answers, he is certain. That bastard, that infuriating asshole always knew; perhaps he could sense Eren about to question, and had taken him here to avoid having to answer.

There was still time to catch up with him. He couldn't possibly have the ability to get from here to Trost in one go on his Talent; Eren could catch him. He could try.

He could finally _understand_ something about this hellish realm that seems to ignore all scrutiny but for the very deepest. Perhaps... perhaps learn who was at risk. If he could redeem himself – his existence – by striving to...

With renewed vigor (and the inferno in his belly kindling again), Eren stands, mindful of his flower companion.

A loud squawk shakes the trees around him as he gains his footing; flocks of birds take wing, birds that had heretofore been chirping and rustling quietly, a mass exodus toward the empty heavens, black shadow shapes against the purpling new-bruise sky.

He is later unsure why he thinks to, but he does – pushes out at the borders of his consciousness, feeling for the source of the disturbance, and ghosts over a tender scabbing wound.

He looks up, across the river. His chin jerks up sharply.

Levi crouches on a branch with one hand holding the one above to steady himself, perched as if a scavenger waiting for carrion, simply watching him; he has no idea how long his – _not his, the_ – soldier has been waiting there but the man seems to flinch when he sees that Eren has noticed him.

There's a measure of glee Eren feels in the pit of his stomach but he's unsure why – his emotions are a tangled knot and if anything that simply makes him angrier.

He steps across the shallowest part of the stream gingerly, pinning Levi in place with both his eyes and a thought he can't contain, acidic: _stay right there._

He does not, cannot question why and whether it works but it does; he is predatory, stalking a bird in a tree and his prey can do naught but watch and wait, sweat, fear.

Does he fear? Does he fear like Eren does beneath all his anger, when the unnatural despair is swept away, burned away like fog under the sun? His thoughts are clear, clearer than they have ever been, he thinks, and with one mind all he wants is –

He falters, near misses a step, and he can almost feel him shrug off the numbness of his muscles; then Eren is stumbling in the grass on the other side of the stream.

He would hit the ground but for the arms that seem simply to appear, one at the small of his back and one at his shoulders, supporting him just inches shy of blades of grass.

 _Unbelievable,_ he is thinking – it must have been the ridge of the bank – but Levi's face comes into view superimposed over the sky and the surge of anger washes thought away.

“You _absolute –_ “ Eren starts, winding up for something especially venomous, because he had been _left behind_ with _no explanation_ and there are secrets still being kept from him, even now –

but Levi's wild-eyed expression cuts him short when he grinds out, gravelly, through clenched teeth, “what the _fuck_ did you just do to me?”

He is shivering as the feeling in his muscles returns to him, like escaping cold water – Eren can feel it where Levi comes into contact with him, and he shuffles to escape his grip.

Rather than that Levi shifts his arms to let him fall to the ground, pins him in place with his weight and, moving too quickly for Eren to notice let alone react, shifts a hand to his throat, applying the gentlest of pressures. Not so much a threat as a promise.

“ _Answer me,_ ” Levi is hissing from above him, his face pale as a corpse in the dusk.

Levi doesn't deserve the answer. “I don't _know_ ,” Eren growls, knowing the feel of it reverberates into Levi's fingers, his thumb cold against Eren's jugular. It angers him that he so willingly shows his cards to the man; though he is not certain himself, why should he look for certainty from the outside? This man has nothing for him – no truth, no honesty.

The soldier does not budge. Nor does he respond. He neither relaxes his touch nor tightens his hold; merely he shivers in place, waiting for the life to flow back into his joints and veins.

“You don't,” Levi repeats, carefully, feeling both words in his mouth before letting them fall, like large droplets of water or sweat or tears.

The air between them is still as death; neither makes a move, a battle of wills in their eyes, and Levi has long since stopped flinching at predatory yellow.

“I don't,” Eren repeats, the fire climbing up his throat. “I _don't,_ because I don't know _anything_ about what _I_ am, let alone what does and doesn't make sense in this piece of shit world we live in – and if you have answers for me,” he sucks in a heated breath, “either just give them to me or _leave,_ if you brought me here just to throw me away –“

“What?” Levi interrupts him, and Eren certainly does not notice the way his emotionless mask cracks away at the mouth, baring parted lips.

“If you're abandoning me, just take the box and _go,_ ” he spits, flames under his tongue. “Go back to your political machina–“

He mutters the last syllable into Levi's mouth, searing lips against his, and it takes a moment for Eren to decide he wants none of this.

With one great heave against the smaller man's chest he pushes him off and to the side. “Fuck _off,_ Levi,” he is growling, shifting himself back, rubbing the side of his hand hard against his mouth and pretending he doesn't taste phantom blood. “I'm not some lovesick puppy you can keep nipping at your heels with one magic gesture. You can't do this to me. I'm _done._ I –“

He's crying, he notices suddenly. Angry tears are gathering at the corners of his eyes and that, that is something he did not want; why? Why is there a knife twisting in his stomach?

“You _cannot_ manipulate me,” he rasps. “I don't care what Erwin _fucking_ Smith wants from me, if he ever wanted anything from me in the first place. I am not his pawn, and I sure as hell am not _yours_ either.”

“Eren,” Levi interrupts, half-kneeling, his uniform torn and dirtied, but still looking strangely dignified.

He hates that he notices, turns away so Levi can't see his eyes, the gentle rivers snaking down to his jaw and chin.

“Save it,” he mutters. “I don't want any of your pity scraps. You won't bother to tell me _anything_ at all; you can consider this the end of our _partnership._ ”

The word tastes like pure venom in his mouth.

“Eren,” he repeats, much more sharply. “Godsdamnit, I brought you here so you would _understand._ ”

“Understand what?” he counters loudly, voice cracking. “How _worthless_ all of this is? What are you even trying to –“

“Our world inside that wall,” Levi interrupts, voice razor-keen, “is a trap.”

Eren hates himself for grasping at the straw, the bait. “What?”

“Erwin dared once. To come here. And then he understood.” There's a shuffle, probably Levi reorienting himself into something more stable. “You felt it yourself.”

It isn't a question.

“Felt _what?_ ” he asks, though bitterly.

He still doesn't look at Levi; doesn't know what the pause before his next words indicates. They come slowly.

“What it is to truly live,” he finally says.

Eren laughs. It is so devoid of humor it gives even himself chills. “That's what you're calling this,” he says, mimicking Levi's question-statement tone. “That's what it is. _Life. That's_ what turned me into that creature?”

It is then that he looks – taken aback by the emotion, the honesty in the set of Levi's face. Nothing is different and yet everything is. He looks years younger, worsened by the surprised tilt of his eyebrows; in response to Eren's words his hand drifts up to the basilisk bite shoulder, the one Eren had sunk his teeth into hours previous.

He can barely see in the dying light but he can make out the redness yet, and it makes his stomach turn.

“If you call it that,” Levi answers carefully.

It is a remarkably poised response for a wound like that.

Eren has no interest in continuing this line of inquiry; not anymore.

“You made me this,” he accuses, though he knows it is empty; Levi had nothing to do with what color blood runs in his veins. “And then I thought – I thought I'd become so monstrous that –“

“Eren,” Levi tries to interrupt gently; it's a blossoming habit of his but Eren ignores the indication and continues. It needs to be said. They are words that rattle in his stomach and they sicken him.

“That you thought it prudent to,” he feels over the words before he says them, careful, “find somewhere to leave me, where I would endanger no one else.”

“No.” Levi says it even before the words could possibly have processed, and the emphasis surprises the both of them. “No.”

“Levi –"

“You're a danger to your enemies, that much is true,” he continues, overriding Eren's own words. “Perhaps they might even consider you a monster.

“But to _me,_ ” and here he seems to trip over the words – of course that's true, Eren thinks, with such emotional shortcomings – “To me, you're the same repugnant brat you've ever been.”

Eren's never felt such a flutter in his stomach from being insulted.

“You have more teeth now,” Levi continues. “And you will use those teeth to demand honesty – and you will get it.”

“Will I,” Eren responds, skepticism dripping like the last few angry tears down his throat and collarbone.

“Come with me to Trost,” Levi offers. “I'm not the one who can explain.”

It has been the plan – that it stays the same is a measure of comfort to Eren, a mark of honesty given thus far. He is thankful for that, at least.

He thinks again of Mikasa and Armin. And though it is selfish, undoubtedly so, he wants to see them again. Perhaps they need not freedom nor him, but they – the mere fact that he could not let them go – are why he is here now, further south than the Wall itself, with a man made of smoke he maybe loves and the hot thrumming of life in his veins.

It is a small hope to him, but one nevertheless, that he might be of some use to whatever Erwin intends – not as a pawn, but perhaps as a caged monster. An ill omen to his enemies – whom, he thinks, he will know when he sees.

“I will,” he agrees, the words escaping him much as a long sigh.

Even though the glow of honesty remains in his eyes Levi hardly reacts but for a nigh-imperceptible loosening of his lips. Had he honestly worried? Eren cannot tell, though the idea of such sits full and deep in his stomach, something of sustenance.

Levi's head tilts back as he looks up at the first glimmering stars; the shift of his neck highlights his basilisk bite shoulder, still left untreated.

Eren stands. “Can we build a fire?” he asks. He has seen nothing indicative of threat in the time outside the Wall, but he still inquires.

“Fetch wood,” Levi answers, standing himself and making his way over to his horse.

The one pack between them hangs on the beast's saddle. The box must be within.

It bothers Eren that he had not thought even to look, to assuage the fear of being left behind.

It bothers him more that perhaps he didn't want to, had resisted the temptation to prove himself wrong, his anger at least partially unfounded.

 

 

 

 

 

He returns minutes later with a bundle of sticks and branches balanced precariously in his arms; at some point his pants had dried though they are still frigid against his skin, and he wonders if he might ever be warm again. 

Levi has the flint next to him in the grass, separating chunks of salted meat. Eren himself barely hungers, and he assumes the same of the soldier given the size of the portion he reties in its cloth.

He accepts a piece to chew thoughtfully as he stacks the wood in a small strategic pattern; he leaves the lighting to Levi, who manipulates his Talent expertly to make sure the flame neither suffocates nor blows out.

It is some time before either of them breaks the silence; it's Levi who hisses near-silently when he moves his shoulder wrong, and it spurs Eren to action.

What he remembers of healing is fog-hazy in memory. Levi bares his shoulder to him with little reluctance though the wound paining him is his own in creation, the tears in his skin deepest to match with the placement of his incisors, and Eren brings both hands up to it, running his thumbs against both sides of the wound.

Levi breathes out.

Eren closes his eyes, reaching, reaching.

Levi brushes up against him or vice versa perhaps, though one is true; Eren leans in, pushes, and then he's breathing through two sets of lungs maybe and he is unsure where he ends and the other begins.

He touches the wound in the way he can't be sure if he really is, though he feels the essence of it, the pain mixed with pleasure and – _oh._

It hadn't been just _him_ and his mania.

There's a feeling of something like exquisite revulsion, shame, desire rolled up into one and he's unsure what to make of it and unsure who it belongs to so he lets it simply _be,_ lets it blanket his consciousness without burrowing deeper.

Perhaps the warm itch is flesh knitting together, or perhaps it is impatience, but it is a weight steadily lifting and Eren is familiar enough now not to follow it up, not to continue to pry where he doesn't need to be for now – though he remains curious, not malevolently so.

They have done that once before and this fragile new-bird trust is young yet. He need not put it at risk.

When he relinquishes hold and comes to the first thing he feels is a hand tangled in his hair; the second is the sensation of his tongue pressed against flesh.

He opens his eyes and finds himself looking beyond Levi – his jaw hurts from the long half-kiss against the now-unbroken skin.

Eren is unsure how long they had remained in that position but the stars overhead are now the only light in the sky.

In his process of sitting back on his heels his tongue runs against the new skin, and the hitched sigh from the soldier is something he could continue listening to for hours; the slight tightening in his pants agrees, but Eren shifts his legs such that it doesn't become a problem.

Levi is looking at him with hooded and bright eyes as he slips his ruined shirt back on proper; it might be the dark but his pupils look large, reflecting gleaming firelight.

They are not far apart so he barely has to move to bring his hand to Eren's jaw.

This – whatever is between them now – is nothing like hours ago, when they both felt life and need as a magnetic force. Whatever this is is truer, hesitant; Eren leans in the mere last hair to the touch of Levi's fingertips and watches the ridge of Levi's throat as he swallows, marveling at the tension between them, his sudden inability to breathe.

Whatever they are acting on now he has been dancing around since the castle; he's unsure how long he's had _this_ effect on the man, but he revels in it, his lips parting slightly when his hands find Levi's thighs and he tenses.

When they lean forward their foreheads touch first, Eren's right temple to Levi's left, and there he stays – there they stay, as Eren's thumbs begin to rub gentle circles against Levi's legs and the pads of Levi's fingers travel up his cheek.

There is a long breath or three before they continue and as Eren reaches he _reaches,_ seeking that, seeking more as he knows he shouldn't but selfishly wants.

Levi seeks it too as they push together and this time it's _want_ not _need_ though Eren still feels the shame washing down Levi's spine; this _boy_ in his heart and mind and he resists the urge to petulantly mumble “I'm seventeen” as it would make it only worse.

Their mouths touch as waves find shore – at long last.

Eren nearly tips in the undertow, dimly aware of his weight resting against Levi, dragged in by the sheer force of longing. Days and days and he is unsure where it begins but it _does,_ realized with a griffon bearing down and hours and days of waiting.

So much pours into him to the extent that Eren moans, perhaps, warm and relieved and perhaps a little melancholy. (His hands pry at the holes in his ruined shirt, searching for Levi's skin.)

He swallows and opens his mouth in a long gasp and Levi takes eagerly, though hours ago the roles were reversed; he fights to lose himself, maybe, relinquishing everything to Eren, escaping into physicality and tossing the burden aside.

He makes his way through as he responds to Levi, taking selfish advantage of the opportunity to learn his mind as his tongue learns his mouth, his fingers learn the ridges and scars of his hardened skin.

It is tiring, exhausting even – everything Levi bequeaths upon him, perhaps as a measure and proof of trust, perhaps to divert it at least for a while – but he accepts it as he would accept a heavy burden in his arms because he _wants._ This is all he has ever wanted.

It is intimate beyond imagining and the breath shared between them tastes like tobacco smoke; merely steps, merely a progression in trust and this is the only place they could have arrived, the place they were meant to come.

Levi seeks his warmth and pulls him close; faintly Eren can feel his own hands grasping buttons and parting them, shrugging out of his jacket and shirt, and then Levi's hands on his chest, collarbone, shoulders are like ice on a blaze melting.

He seeks and takes but only because Eren gives, has wanted to give since he knew what that want was. And by giving he himself takes – takes Levi's mind into him, an act of intimacy far beyond mere flesh.

“ _You're leaving them here.”_ The force of the wave of guilt, regret, leaves him choking and he should never have said that – the reacting silence a product of too many emotions to name, too many things to say all at once that could never, ever be said.

As if he himself could quantify it all speaking to a flower – it was silly of him to think Levi's act was anything but merciful, as if he didn't have the love for them Eren had.

Eren had ridiculed him for selflessness and it is a solid truth lingering in his throat he must learn to swallow past.

He parts to breathe, litters featherlight touches of his lips down the pulsing vein in Levi's throat. Each is an apology though he is unsure if it is apparent; isn't sure he wants it to be. He apologizes for his own understanding; though he feels as if Levi has relinquished full conscious thought, he is sure this will be remembered in thought if not in deed.

Perhaps it is escapism to seek only base pleasure in their first _real –_ whatever this is – but it is only fair, only fair after what Eren had subjected him to hours previous, his own selfishness, his own inability to reconcile a monster's nature with a human's desire.

In the face of that the most selfish act Levi could commit would be –

Staying. It would be staying, Eren realizes as he rocks back on his heels.

The understanding dawns on him like pink in the morning sky and with renewed resolve he surges forward, tonguing along Levi's collarbone; the latter hisses gently, raises his hands to fist in Eren's hair.

It is not something that should be thanked, that needed to be thanked, but the desire still takes him; it and the desire to heal what cannot be, a gaping wound in the shape of four people that should be here with them and are no longer.

It is inconceivable that anything could be done to lessen that damage yet selfishly, ambitiously, egotistically he desires it; he feels himself those raw torn edges and thinks _what if?_ What if it could be done?

It isn't like he has previous understanding to tell him it cannot be. As he said before he understands little about himself let alone what should or shouldn't be possible – he's done enough amazing of people who understand more of that than anything so why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he try?

He owes Levi that, if nothing else. At least a _try._

His suspicions are confirmed when Levi reacts with surprise at the slipping of his hands; for now at least he cannot be heard, though when his soldier awakens he will surely understand. Surely. Perhaps will even be able to forgive him for this, this trespass that is and isn't one all at once.

Eren pops the button of Levi's pants, hooks his fingertips under the hem, and pulls down; Levi raises his hips to cooperate though it seems only superficial. It is true, then, that his eyes seem flat even filled with desire as they are, all black and firelight glimmer.

It pains Eren though he understands completely. He _understands_ and that's why he cannot be unhappy with this turn of events; he is the one at fault, anyway, and he is the one who can take pains to fix things, even a bit.

Levi's undershorts come with when he pulls and his length is already hard; Eren's pants strain a little more uncomfortably at the sight but he dips down, settling on his elbows, and tongues the trail of soft raven hair curling out from below Levi's navel.

It is crazy enough it may even work, though he is unsure what it will be to try to heal a wound that isn't physical. Having Levi pliant will only help; he speculates, of course, but he has no other foundation other than sheer determination.

If nothing else the base physical pleasure will be something to take the edge off the possible anger when he awakens.

The musk of Levi's scent is cloying like a vibrant garden though he smells of woods, wind, and smoke, and Eren has to swallow hard; he has never attempted anything like this before, hardly had the inclination or the desire before this point in his life.

This would be a whole lot more unpleasant were he not salivating in anticipation, and if he were rational he would be disgusted with himself.

Eren throws caution to the wind and lets the tip of his tongue trace Levi's shaft from base to tip.

His soldier bucks once, hands groping in Eren's hair but letting him lead; he's thankful for that, as choking would be counterproductive to the process.

He needs to stop pussyfooting around, he decides. With a quickly thought prayer to anyone who might be listening, he tucks his tongue over his bottom teeth and takes Levi into his mouth.

Eren sets to work running his fingers over the raw rough ridges of Levi's loss even as his lips caress the veins of his length. He allows himself to find the physical rhythm first, raising one hand to provide additional sensation, before he delves into Levi's consciousness, the threads of his life that fray and smoke around a nameless named shape he gives no voice to.

The energy he imparts feels like cooling water and he envisions the strings knitting back together, perhaps not as good as new but solid, capable of bearing weight; he moves from thread to thread as though plucking an instrument, spending careful time rendering the damage done to superficial and nothing more.

It would not do to erase the injury entirely; else it would not scar as wounds of life should. He cannot take away Levi's ability to grow in order to save him pain.

The thought sobers him. He is playing a deity, tuning a man at his will to play a slightly different tune; but he does so with the purest of intentions, and that has to count for something.

It has to.

He isn't sure how long he has been at this but when he moves back and the strings hold him he thinks it's okay. He's done a bang-up job but more would simply detract from his work.

Dimly he can feel his throat and jaw getting sore.

He lets go of the mental with tentative fingers – he hopes his work will be taken well in the morning – and returns to the physical, though the act seems almost topical in the face of his intentions.

Levi lets out a loud curse as Eren lets his teeth graze just barely against his flesh. It is enough, and he comes in bursts that Eren thinks only to keep, to swallow, struggling to keep up without choking on the strange taste and consistency.

He finishes as well onto the grass, surprised; though he supposes he is still capable of receiving pleasure when his mind is elsewhere, as evidenced. But it leaves his limbs feeling heavy and numb, and it's all he can do to wipe his mouth and make his way around the evidence toward Levi, who lays back on the grass, eyes mostly lidded.

Perhaps this too is selfish of him, but he lays next to his soldier, releasing a long breath when Levi snakes his arm around him.

The stars glitter the secrets they keep above them as they embrace exhausted sleep together.


End file.
